tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91826081912920294832024-03-13T09:22:30.164-07:00Under A Blood Burning MoonPaul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-46410972389558749192012-07-12T20:51:00.003-07:002012-07-12T20:54:55.543-07:00Blessing of the Fleet<div class="MsoNormal">
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Opening day on the trolling grounds and a glassy ocean
receives the fleet after their long, bucking ride up from Sitka. Sometimes July on the Fairweather
Grounds is like this, like old friends returning to each other. But this July
there will be only three more days of good weather. The other days it will blow. Westerlies, southwesterlies,
white caps and swells, twenty five knots winds that come whipping off the open
ocean through the trollers’ welded bait sheds making a sound like a locomotive
humming in the near distance. With
the winds there is rain, there is usually rain even in calm seas. It does not
storm, exactly, but mists, sometimes aggressively; it is never warm. </div>
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Thirty miles in the distance the Fairweather Mountains, the
largest coastal mountain range in the world, hover like, like, well, like a
mirage. There is no other way to describe it, though there used to be: for
thirty million years the whole coast was a glacier but now is not and will
never be again. Now: the radiant white peaks thaw, sending crystalline water
down the banks over a tree line carved by a falling chunk of glacier that
caused the largest tsunami in history, one so big that the waves from it moved
at six hundred miles per hour and flung anchored fishing boats miles out to sea
like some sort of absurd slingshot.
Others were luckier, riding their boats on the aftershocks like giant,
lumbering surfboards, returning years later to fish there again and marvel at
the placid emerald bay as it teemed with shrimp and iridescently scaled black
gummed King salmon who had grown to 30, 40, 50 pounds, monstrous sizes, and
drove the fisherman to take dozens of photos in which they –the fisherman-
smiled widely while holding the beasts and later showed to their bored wives
and children. In the photos, now
old, because even that was 40 years and thousands of deaths at sea ago, their
expressions say: This is forever. </div>
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On the deck of the <i>Nerka</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
John and Angela run the gurneys.
Their gaffe hooks swoop through the air and the hydraulic lines pulse
like arteries clean of plaque; they have a rhythm that deckhands, that </span><i>husbands</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><i>wives</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
get with years of practice. They are “in them,” gliding the boat and their
hooks through a large school of salmon, and that is all they can ask for. </span></div>
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John is captain and Angela is first mate and at sea that
makes sense. At sea there is a <i>plan</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. We
will fish here. We will eat then.
We will work until dark. We will
love each other in this way. At sea there are problems, yes, obstacles, yes,
but not confusion; at home there is much confusion. There are the usual
problems: Joel drinks too much and Angela feels herself getting too old. Fishing does not make them much money
and Angela is thirty-five with a feeling like glass shards in the tendon of her
left index finger from shaking fish from lines (she’s done this since her dad
first put her to work on his boat at eight years old), and she has sharp lines
around her eyes from too much time outside and too much work and too little sleep
and too much worrying about buyers and by-catch and frayed timing belts, and
and and…paperwork? No one told her when she bought the boat with John there
would be so much damn paperwork.
Why didn’t her dad ever tell her this? That fishing was really only ten
percent about catching fish and the rest of it filled in all the corners of
your life like silt. How can she even think of having a child when half the
year she is on the boat and the other half she is fixing and recovering and
filing papers promising the federal government she will clean all salmon on
only kosher surfaces (kosher surfaces, really?) and mark all boxes containing
salmon with the word “salmon” (being sure to also include the species) so in
case someone breaks into the boxes and starts eating the fish raw they will be
aware that what they are doing is eating uncooked coho and that that might not
necessarily be a good thing. She tires of this. She tires not of life itself, just of all the time in it,
the way it stacks up, the way it repeats itself in a way that makes the meaning
so hard to find. </span></div>
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A half mile away Michael slams the King salmon onto the deck
of <i>Charity </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and smiles to himself. It is a keeper. It is beautiful. He bends over the fish
and slits its belly from anus to just below the collar. He says thank you. He says thank you to each fish he
kills. Sometimes he says it aloud. There is a quote in his galley above
the stove that says: “When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart, ‘By the
same power that slays you, I too am slain; And I too shall be consumed.’” He does not know the author and
has never tried to find out because he only wants that person to be everything
he </span><i>imagines</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> him to be and nothing
less. He found the quote written
on the back of an old tide book in the fo’c’sle when he bought the boat and has
spent a lot of time contemplating the meaning. He thinks he has it all charted out in his head, the
meaning, though he could be wrong.
He kills for a living and this can be difficult. Just like it can be difficult to
remember how to feel. He has to
remind himself often. Who
knows? Maybe, if he forgets to
feel, he’ll start killing more, even become a seine boat captain and kill by
the millions. So what he does is
remind himself. He reminds himself
to feel thankfulness for one body giving itself up for another. He whispers ‘thank you’ into the wet,
whistling air and the fish returns the words with the last wheezing gasps of
its life, blood running fast from its gills and head before Michael removes it
all with a few deft flicks of his knife, leaving heart exposed, still pumping
in the collar even after everything else is gone. </span></div>
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At home in Sitka, Michael’s father has the television
on. He eats dinner in his den and
watches the baseball game. He grew
up in Seattle. He remembers before
satellite radio the torture of fishing in the summer and not knowing the score
of the game. Two weeks between updates in the standings and he couldn’t stand
it. The other captains made fun of him, but he still loves his Mariners after
all these years. Ten years ago he had a stroke and then his wife died of cancer
three years later and now he watches every game, every inning, every
evening. It is what’s left
filling in the time, along with a vague feeling of hopefulness and anxiety that
always happens when summer comes and the fleet leaves to go fishing.</div>
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Michael’s father rises and goes to the refrigerator for a
beer. He allows himself this one
luxury: a beer a week with his Sunday dinner. He walks to his porch and cracks the beer open, placing it
on the wooden railing and slumping into his wicker chair facing a pink setting
sun that looks like it’s vacuuming silhouetted boats up into the horizon. Michael’s father misses his son. He pleaded with him for years not to
become a fisherman, not to follow him into the profession. He told him the story of the <i>Saint
Patrick</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, that blew a main in the night and
listed to ninety degrees. He told
Michael how his friend, the deck boss on the boat, ordered the others into
their survival suits and tied each of them together. He told them how the survival boat had been knocked from the
boat by a rogue wave and how all eleven of the crew had to dive into the water
together and wait for help in the inky dark. When Michael was older, he even told his son how his friend
on the boat had looked into the eyes of a dead crewman as he cut him loose from
the human chain, freeing the ballast from the others all because a pin sized
hole in his suit had killed him.
He told Michael of the eternal bitterness that followed for his friend
who survived when he found out the boat had righted itself on its own and never
sank, and also of the eternal darkness that followed for those who died. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJSx-66sT6bKTL3U02lDhy0Al_IeJpSGfO1NmTifysGQe6lofZzsCfZ9_-ERR1kY9bjG17tUSJdhRpUKxwYXcLAy5QkQxNltRNWS54IQHtkkSpDQpZ-EXeI07Q2JhONzvUssWq8AGLlPck/s1600/trolling007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJSx-66sT6bKTL3U02lDhy0Al_IeJpSGfO1NmTifysGQe6lofZzsCfZ9_-ERR1kY9bjG17tUSJdhRpUKxwYXcLAy5QkQxNltRNWS54IQHtkkSpDQpZ-EXeI07Q2JhONzvUssWq8AGLlPck/s320/trolling007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Michael’s father looks out into the sound and the sun and
sips his beer. He tries to think of the prayer they say each year to bless the
fleet, the thanks they gave to God before heading out. Michael’s father is not religious but
he sometimes feels, he sometimes <i>believes </i><span style="font-style: normal;">in
something greater. He
believes like he believed in not leaving port on a Friday, like he believed in
never using a dirty knife to clean his fish: superstition, maybe, but something
greater too. He cannot remember the exact words of the blessing of the fleet
and this frustrates him. It has
been too long, and he was always too focused on the fishing when he heard it,
already plotting his next run, his next place to set gear. Michael’s father leans forward in his
chair. He massages his temples and waits for it to come to him but it never
does and so finally he thinks: </span><i>Please God, watch over my son</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. </span><i>Watch
over all the sons and daughters and bring them all back home. Amen.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></div>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-26761950976581920132011-05-19T19:02:00.000-07:002011-05-20T19:40:23.104-07:00The Doxy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7YZt7QYhcxI4iM5T2S5x0LMbhMNyZ8RsvA0UNoQg_CIrlE12_LQCyR2vDMJRdlQPEQ4G6h6duk9wtDIy3aAbTr4ASWe1l56LUvfA3PUUYwKgrIrOYEBbm4ZgdvBYSr-wcQIyjeMtOufE/s1600/37823_904307917622_10114834_50160371_3641439_n.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu7YZt7QYhcxI4iM5T2S5x0LMbhMNyZ8RsvA0UNoQg_CIrlE12_LQCyR2vDMJRdlQPEQ4G6h6duk9wtDIy3aAbTr4ASWe1l56LUvfA3PUUYwKgrIrOYEBbm4ZgdvBYSr-wcQIyjeMtOufE/s320/37823_904307917622_10114834_50160371_3641439_n.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608993714305838386" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoHeader, li.MsoHeader, div.MsoHeader { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><i>The Doxy</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><i> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b><i><span style=""> </span>Change of light – Jake and Buster -<span style=""> </span>Sea lions– A parley – “Blue Boots”/The Gene S .- “Those tender boat assholes” - In Nakat Bay – A moment of silence </i></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><i> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><i><span style=""> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style=""> </span>I was awake in my bunk, and I could feel my legs sweating against my foam mattress.<span style=""> </span>Thunder reverberated through the mountains.<span style=""> </span>I listened to the rain fall softly on the deck.<span style=""> </span>I waited.<span style=""> </span>Brian would be in to get me up soon.<span style=""> </span>My knees ached at the thought of crawling on deck, and there was still a welt on my cheek from where a jellyfish tentacle had stung me the day before. We hadn’t been to town in five weeks. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>The bunk in the forecastle was humid and warm, heavy with the scent of unwashed clothes and a six-pack of glass bottled beer that had broken open on our last jog back from town.<span style=""> </span>I though about how the bottles had smashed into the toolbox after we’d ploughed through a stretch of ten-foot waves.<span style=""> </span>I’d been driving the boat at the time, and there was a terrible feeling when we reached the top of a crest- that long moment where time seemed to pause- before the bottom fell out of the world, and we went crashing into the next trough.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>There were six inches between my forehead and Brian’s bunk above mine, and I stared at the swirls in the wood.<span style=""> </span>A filtered shaft of moonlight lit the forecastle, and I drifted in and out of sleep. In a dream there was a woman, warm and naked lying against me, all the sexless days disappearing as I concentrated on rivulets of sweat that ran across the contours of her shoulders and back.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">But when I woke back up, I had the image of Dave in my mind.<span style=""> </span>His fat and oily neck and the folds of pasty white skin. The salt stained ball cap covering his sparse white hair, and the way he waddled on deck because his midsection was so bloated. He’d been in my dreams ever since his heart attack. Ever since the joke had started that I’d killed him by asking him to climb the stack for my new rain gear.<span style=""> </span>He’d died early in the season, before he had taught any of his crew members how to drive the boat.<span style=""> </span>And after he’d died (midway between a steam from the fishing grounds to Ketchikan), the crew had floated for miles, captainless, and in a panic, dropping anchor too far from the shore so that it never hit bottom, and instead drug behind them like a bum leg.<span style=""> </span>We’d listened to it all play out over the radio like it was a program broadcasted to entertain us, instead of an actual thing that happened.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I sighed and reached for my socks and pants at my feet and rolled out of the bunk. My throat was dry, and I felt like a beer.<span style=""> </span>I hadn’t had a drink since I had gotten on the boat. All the work and all the boredom and all the death, and I hadn’t had a drink.<span style=""> </span>It was a long time and a helluva thing. I thought about that for a while.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The analog clock on the wall of the wheelhouse read 4 AM.<span style=""> </span>It was time for the change of light set. Brian hadn’t been to sleep that night, hadn’t properly been to sleep in days it seemed, and I’d only gone to bed two hours before.<span style=""> </span>I wondered what kind of mood he’d be in.<span style=""> </span>I brushed my teeth and was putting on deodorant when the VHF crackled to life. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Attention all mariners.<span style=""> </span>Stand by for important message from U.S. Coast Guard, Ketchikan, Alaska.”<span style=""> </span>I walked up to the radio and turned the volume up a few notches.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I watched Brian’s outline on deck.<span style=""> </span>He was bent over the stern and studying the end of our net. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Attention all mariners, be on lookout for fishing vessel, The Doxy, thirty-two foot white and blue gillnetter out of Gig Harbor, Washington.<span style=""> </span>Last seen Wednesday night fishing two point five miles southeast of Tree Point, Alaska near the Nakat Bay jackline.<span style=""> </span>Repeat, the Doxy is a thirty-two foot white and blue gillnetter last seen fishing southeast of Tree Point, Alaska.<span style=""> </span>Please report any information on missing vessel to Coast Guard channel eighteen. Over.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I stared at the radio trying to comprehend the meaning. The message started to cycle over.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">When I got on deck, Brian was already at work.<span style=""> </span>The gibbous moon was fading but still high over the ridge of Canadian Rockies. The sky was star sprent and tendrils of fog drifted over the evergreen trees and enveloped the lighthouse. The water lapped against the hull, and the hydraulics lines on the drum pulsed like arteries carrying their fluids through rubber hoses. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I put on my rain gear and walked to the starboard side of the drum. I tried to think how I’d say it, and then decided to just say it fast and natural.<span style=""> </span>“Jake and Buster are missing.” I couldn’t think of Jake’s face, but I imagined his dog, a golden retriever named Buster, wagging his tail and running back and forth across deck.<span style=""> </span>They usually fished a couple of sets over from us, and I would watch him through the binoculars.<span style=""> </span>The dog was always on deck, even when Jake wasn’t.<span style=""> </span>A good lookout and ever faithful.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Huh?” Brian didn’t look up from the net.<span style=""> </span>He picked clumps of seaweed and small sticks from it, and I helped.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“The Doxy’s gone missing.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Says who?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Coast Guard.<span style=""> </span>I just heard it on the VHF.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The sky was purple and blue in the east.<span style=""> </span>It felt like day was coming so much later than just a few weeks ago, and it made me feel both sad and excited to think of going home. The days of the $5000 catches were gone, but we were still making good money. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“He probably just cut out early with the closing today.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I looked at Brian and didn’t think he believed what he’d said.<span style=""> </span>The fishing on the outside was closed for a few days, and most guys went inland to work an open fishery on the weekends. You had to be lazy or in need of repair to not spend the weekend grinding inland.<span style=""> </span>Everyone knew Jake was dumb, but he wasn’t lazy. His frenetic worship of the Lord was proof enough of that. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“I like the guy, but he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s doing.<span style=""> </span>He’s corked the shit out of a Randy a few times, and he got us early season. Maybe he just gave up on Nakat for the weekend.<span style=""> </span>A guy’s gotta have some guts and the right teaching to make any money there.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“That’s where he went missing,” I said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian didn’t say anything, and I could tell he was worried and thinking it over.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The net came slowly over the stern, and finally, the seaweed cleared and there were a few fish.<span style=""> </span>They were no longer the vibrant silver of early summer but rotting and black and eggless.<span style=""> </span>With jagged misshapen teeth, and chunks of missing flesh where sea lions had been gnawing at them, they were like mutant versions of their early summer selves.<span style=""> </span>The net was full of surprises by this time in the season.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian grunted and paused from picking.<span style=""> </span>“Jesus, Mike.<span style=""> </span>They look about as good as I feel.<span style=""> </span>Fucking sea lions.” He grinned, and his teeth shown in the dim light.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">There was a fish every few fathoms for the first hundred, and the boat bobbed in the three-foot rollers as I yawned and blinked sleep from my eyes.<span style=""> </span>The rain was just a drizzle now, and I started daydreaming of the first cup of coffee, jogging on the gear with the sun warming my face, the clouds receding back into the mountains until they cleared the sparkling inland fjords and disappeared back into Canada. <span style=""> </span>But in my mind, I kept going back to Buster running the deck of The Doxy, and those mossy granite cliffs of Nakat Bay.<span style=""> </span>They’d be hard to climb if a guy fell in, I thought. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I picked the net in a mechanic fashion, but before long the fish were coming over the rail in large clumps, and I jabbed my fish picker into the net trying to keep up with Brian. These fish were lively and small, mostly pink salmon, with spots on their tails and dumb vacant looks in their eyes.<span style=""> </span>They were only thirty-five cents a pound, half the price of chums, and I was starting to hate them for being so cheap and plentiful.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes I wanted to break apart their gill arches with my hand, step on them and watch them burst open.<span style=""> </span>Punish them for making me work just as hard as three weeks ago but for half the money.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The net was slick with jellyfish slime, and their bulbous, membranous bodies came up with the fish and then broke apart in the meshes of the net and plopped on the deck like blobs of pink and purple snot.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian yelled out like he’d been burned by a hot iron and slammed the drum to a stop. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Motherfucker.<span style=""> </span>Motherfucking fucker.” There was slime across all across his cheek and nose, and he shook his head from side to side. I could already imagine the welt on his face.<span style=""> </span>They had a way of lingering.<span style=""> </span>I’d been jellyfish stung across the eye so bad earlier in the season that I went blind for a day, and continued to have blurriness and tearing for two more.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian cursed again, but then started the drum back up.<span style=""> </span>He looked angry and in pain but said nothing else. <i>There’s only so much time to feel sorry for yourself, or anyone else.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style=""> </span>That was something Brian was always saying to me.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">We picked the fish from the net, but many were too small to get caught in the large meshes.<span style=""> </span>They fell out and hit the deck hard, popping off like bleeding firecrackers at our feet and splashing the jellyfish slime onto our pant legs before spasming out their last few moments of life in bloody half arcs all across the deck. A few other fish were like chunks of ice, large silvers and sockeyes, already in rigor mortis and heavy enough that they could break a toe if they hit just right.<span style=""> </span>The fish piled up and blocked the scuppers and turned the deck murky and russet colored, and pretty soon we were ankle deep in them. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Goddamn,” Brian said.<span style=""> </span>“There’s a metric fuck ton of em’ this morning.” His mood had already turned away from the news of The Doxy.<span style=""> </span>Despite the pain, it was obvious the set would turn in good money.<span style=""> </span>“Mike, you better go throw a few down before they start falling over the sides.”<span style=""> </span>The boat rocked hard starboard and a few dozen fish smashed into the rail.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Alright, Cap, I gotcha.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I left the net and pulled the hatch covers off the holds. I rearranged the brailer bags, and then threw dozens of fish in the port hold to even out the boat’s weight. I worked on my hands and knees, and each time I tossed one of the stiff fish into the hold, it echoed against the fiberglass sides like a stone down a well.<span style=""> </span>My back ached, and my palms cramped from grabbing fish by their thick tails.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I put the hatches back on and returned to helping Brian. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“How many did you put down?” he said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“About a hundred.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian stopped picking from the net and surveyed the rest of the deck.<span style=""> </span>There must have been another hundred fish and ten more in the couple fathoms of net between the drum and the stern.<span style=""> </span>There was blood everywhere, even a little glistening in his sandy blond beard.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“At this rate, they just might sink us. It’s turning into a theatre of fucking war, man.” He smiled wide like a little kid, that smile that said the fishing was still good. How did he always end up in such a good mood, I thought.<span style=""> </span>Maybe it was because he was the youngest captain in the fleet.<span style=""> </span>Maybe it just felt that good to have his own boat, to be making money on his own terms.<span style=""> </span>One thing I’d come to learn: fishing was about money more than anything, and when we were making it, the rest of the world had a way of folding back into itself. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I smiled too and decided to play along.<span style=""> </span>“Should I employ counter-insurgency measures, sir?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Naw, not unless the little bastards get up past the top of the scuppers again.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">In another hour, we’d finished picking the last hundred fathoms.<span style=""> </span>There must have been four hundred fish in the set.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t remember a set all season that had lasted longer or had had more fish. I worked at throwing the fish down the holds and cleaning the deck and started whistling to myself.<span style=""> </span>Brian had played the “Best of Michael Jackson” on the boat stereo the night before, and I had “Billie Jean” stuck in my head. Pretty soon he joined in and was singing the lyrics. He took a break from setting back the net in the water and started moon walking in his blood encrusted deck boots, and I laughed. On our boat, we passed days with an I Pod mix and old copies of the New Yorker Brian’s girlfriend mailed us.<span style=""> </span>I thought of sitting in old Randy’s galley at the net float, gas station porno strewn on the dining table and a tape of Conway Twitty on a boom box. Things could have been much worse. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">By the time Brian set the net back, the early morning fog and rain had cleared, and it was turning into a bright and warm day. Maybe only seventy or so degrees in the sun, but hot enough that the inside of my rain gear was already sticky and sour with the scent of fish guts and blood.<span style=""> </span>I peeled off my rain jacket and pants and went inside.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I made a pot of coffee, and then poured a cup. The taste was rich and bitter and streamed down my throat.<span style=""> </span>I felt that jolt of energy fighting back against the waves of tiredness, and it made me think of caffeine after a hangover.<span style=""> </span>The way it had of cutting through the fog and making everything better, if temporarily.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian sprayed the back deck and then changed from his rain gear.<span style=""> </span>I walked to the open cabin door to ask if he wanted a cup, but then suddenly he came rushing at me and pushed me aside into the kitchen counter.<span style=""> </span>He hopped into the forecastle and returned with his rifle.<span style=""> </span>Brian put the boat in gear, and the diesel engine roared to life.<span style=""> </span>The engine strained as he rammed it<span style=""> </span>through the gears, up to what must have been ten thousand RPMS for a short sprint along our net.<span style=""> </span>We crashed through the water, and I could feel my stomach slam into my throat.<span style=""> </span>I bounced high as we hit each wave, and then I hit my head on the low ceiling, shattering a bare light bulb all over the galley floor.<span style=""> </span>I cursed and rubbed my head. Brian looked back at me, and I stared at him.<span style=""> </span>He ignored me and went back to firing out the port side window for a minute or so, and then put the boat in neutral and climbed out the window. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Get me more ammo,” he shouted.<span style=""> </span>“Worry about the light bulb later. We’ve got a couple of sea lions in the net.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I went down into the forecastle and fumbled through the toolbox for more bullets, all the while muttering to myself.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Every fucking time.<span style=""> </span>Every fucking time, he does this.<span style=""> </span>Sea lions, and he acts like their fucking killer sharks.” I talked to myself for a while to work down from the anger.<span style=""> </span>“All that gas and time just to save a few fish from getting eaten.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The door of the head flew up as we hit another wave, and I noticed there were bullet casings in the toilet. I scanned the floor (an area of about two feet by three which doubled as a miniature shower) and saw five or six more shell casings.<span style=""> </span>They were coming in from the small port side window, where I could see Brian lay prone, with his rifle over his shoulder. He’d stopped firing, and I walked back into the cabin and put the bullets on the captain’s seat. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I stared at the shattered glass on the floor.<span style=""> </span>Fuck it, I thought.<span style=""> </span>He can clean it up when he gets back in.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian stood on the port side of the bow and scanned the net for the offending sea lions.<span style=""> </span>I hadn’t seen them.<span style=""> </span>I could rarely seen them, but Brian had a hawkish sense for these things. I watched him as he leaned in the window for the extra ammo and reloaded.<span style=""> </span>He walked back to the bow and stood.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">There was a short burst on one our other radios.<span style=""> </span>“Mike, you got me on here.” The voice sounded old, a little slurred and deliberate like someone who carried too much weight in the neck, and I could tell it was Randy on The Kimberly.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I reached for the radio. “Yeah, Randy.<span style=""> </span>I got you.” I watched Brian pacing the bow through the window, still searching the net.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You hear this deal about Jake on The Doxy?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, we just got the transmission during our change of light.<span style=""> </span>You wanna talk to Brian, you’ll have to wait.<span style=""> </span>He’s massacring some sea lions.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Randy chuckled.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah, I seen that.<span style=""> </span>The fishing’s slow over here, and I been watching through my binoculars. Looks like you guys had a helluva first set there before them sea lions come around.<span style=""> </span>You must have caught everything before they could get down to me.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“We caught a couple,” I said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Right, a couple.<span style=""> </span>You guys fishing Nakat after the closure today?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, affirmative there, Randy.<span style=""> </span>Brian thought we’d fish up by the jackline.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Shit,” he said, “up there with the big boys.<span style=""> </span>Tell Brian I want to come around and parley.<span style=""> </span>I’m gonna leave the gear here and give it a good soak.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Right, Randy. I’ll tell him.<span style=""> </span>See you in a few.<span style=""> </span>Over.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Hey, uh wait.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“A few of us are gonna meet on The Gene S. tonight over by Cape Fox.<span style=""> </span>Have a drink and say a prayer for Jake if you guys wanna anchor up.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Alright, I’ll let Brian know. Over.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">About fifty feet away, The Kimberly bobbed stern to stern with us.<span style=""> </span>Randy stood on the back deck and ran the boat from the second throttle he had next to his drum.<span style=""> </span>It was not the safest way to parley, but guys did it all the time.<span style=""> </span>I walked on deck and stood next to Brian who still had his rifle in hand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Ahoy there, boys.<span style=""> </span>I hear you’re having some sea lion trouble.” Randy was shouting to be heard above the idling engines, but it was the kind of clear day that when we sat on the gear with the engine off I could hear a boat coming from miles away.<span style=""> </span>When, with the right kind of ears, I could hear the eery chatter of deckhands practically a quarter mile from us. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“I think I scared them off,” Brian said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, just remember to be careful firing off the bow like that.<span style=""> </span>I was doing that one time and damn near killed myself.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“What happened?”<span style=""> </span>Brian put the boat in reverse and backed a little closer to The Kimberly in the shifting seas. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“I was shooting at this little shit fucking seal that was swimming around my gear. Somewhere up near Juneau in the 80s.<span style=""> </span>I had this brand new scoped rifle I brought up with me that season. I was popping shots off my hip, but then got down on my belly and lined one up through the scope. Only problem was that the scope had gotten off in the ride up that year, and so when I fired a shot it went about three inches lower than I meant. The bullet hit my anchor chain, ricocheted back, and nailed me smack dab in the middle of my forehead.” Randy chuckled his big man’s laugh like it was funny instead of horrific.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“I was stunned.<span style=""> </span>I was pretty sure I’d killed myself.<span style=""> </span>But then I walked back inside the cabin and saw the bullet had lodged between my skin and skull.<span style=""> </span>I took out a pocket knife and pried the bullet out, and then drove myself back to town for stitches.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian and I stared at each other.<span style=""> </span>Randy was no doubt a tough old guy, a former crabber in the Bering Sea and off the coast of Oregon, but he had a bunch of these near death stories.<span style=""> </span>Stories where he climbed a mountainside after his truck crashed over the guardrail, or cut himself out of bite lines while forty foot waves crashed down on him, and it was hard to know how much stock to put in them. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“No Coast Guard?” Brian said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Ah, shit, they don’t come out unless you’re missing an arm, or turn up drowned.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Or, you have a heart attack,” I said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian and Randy turned to me. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, or you up and die like poor old Dave.” Randy took off his long-billed cap and wiped his big red forehead with the back of his hand.<span style=""> </span>“What do you guys think of this whole Doxy thing?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“I don’t know,” Brian said.<span style=""> </span>“He better turn up soon, or one of us will have to talk to that big loud wife of his.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Randy laughed. “Maybe he just went back to town because he felt bad for missing church during our opening last Sunday.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Brian smiled.<span style=""> </span>“God damn, he’s not a bad guy, though.<span style=""> </span>Corked the shit out of us during change of light a few weeks ago, and I ran his ass up and down on the radio for it.<span style=""> </span>Then, when I saw him in Ketchikan later that week, he gave me a McDonalds gift certificate for $20 and a hand written apology on the inside of a book.<span style=""> </span>Guess he felt that bad about it.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“What was the book?” Randy said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“<i>You Can’t Be An Atheist Because God Doesn’t Believe in Them</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.” Brian said</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>We all laughed.<span style=""> </span>It was just the sort of book you could imagine Jake giving someone.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Sonuvabitch means well.<span style=""> </span>Just needs to cut out that God shit and figure out the fishing.” Randy spit out into the water.<span style=""> </span>“Alright guys, meet you tonight over on the Gene S.?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, we’ll be there,” Brian said. “We’ll probably knock off early, maybe around sunset.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">We steamed to the off load point in the little bay inside Cape Fox.<span style=""> </span>It was just after noon, and we were south of the lighthouse and around the bend from Nakat Bay. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">Brian had regretted the sea lion ordeal, and let me drive the boat as he swept the glass from the cabin floor.<span style=""> </span>He took the wheel when finished, and in a few minutes we could see The Gene S., bright and red and black and shining in the sunlight. There was a skull and crossbones painted on the bow like it was some sort of modern day pirate boat, but really, it was just an old steel crabber out of Seattle that doubled as a tender boat for gillnetters in the summer.<span style=""> </span>It must have been a little over a hundred feet long, and when we pulled alongside, starboard to port, it cast a huge shadow over us that made me feel like we’d be crushed by it.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">It was still clear, and a couple of eagles sat perched on the tops of evergreens.<span style=""> </span>The wind was blowing steadily, and I watched the trees sway hard.<span style=""> </span>The replacement captain of the Gene S. was a young guy named Gabe, and he greeted us by tossing over a line.<span style=""> </span>I tied it to our stern raiol, and then caught the next line from one of their deckhands.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“How goes Blue Boots?” their deckhand, Paul, shouted at me.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I’d shown up to Alaska with cheap, blue deck boots that went to mid-calf and looked like they were made for a child at play on the beach, and so I’d spent the first week of the season as “Blue Boots,” a bad nickname for someone trying to earn his spot.<span style=""> </span>My captain, the deckhands on the other boats, the tender guys, and especially Dave, the obese and sour former captain of the Gene S., had called me it.<span style=""> </span>It hadn’t taken long before I got tired of the nickname, and I so I’d put in an order with the processing plant for new boots and rain gear at the end of my first week fishing.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">On a Saturday near the end of June, the gear had arrived.<span style=""> </span>When we’d met the boat, Dave had been the only one on deck at the time, and the gear was in a box along with our groceries on the top of a double stack of ten-foot by twelve-foot plastic tubs.<span style=""> </span>He’d cursed me, and then waddled over and climbed the stack to get my gear.<span style=""> </span>I remembered him gasping for breath after he handed me the box, and me pulling back after sweat from his hands dripped on to mine.<span style=""> </span>He died in his bunk on the way back to town two hours later. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You know, I haven’t had those boots for over a month,” I said to Paul and tied the other line to the bow. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, not since you killed Dave.” He smiled a toothy grin, and the veins on his forearms were huge and wrapped in barbwire tattoos. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I looked at him.<span style=""> </span>“At least I wasn’t the dipshit who dropped anchor two miles from shore.” He stared at me but didn’t say anything else. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The seas were rocking hard in the little bay, and the raised deck of the Gene S., some six feet above ours, threatened to pull our rails loose from where they were bolted in to the deck.<span style=""> </span>The wood made a terrible moaning sound with each little wave like it would splinter apart at any moment.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian was hooking a brailer bag to the metal hook on the end of the hyrdraulic crane and yelled at Paul, “Hey, loosen up the ties on your end before you pull my goddamn rails off.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You guys will be fine, everyone else has,” Paul said, and went about sorting fish from a tub. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Gabe ran the hydraulic crane and lifted the brailer bag from the hold.<span style=""> </span>He was still new to working the cranes, and it was a slow process.<span style=""> </span>Brian became more tense with each moment, and one of our rails, the one even with the back of the wheelhouse, was straining at its base, while the molding looked like it was coming away from the deck. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Each bag was nearly a thousand pounds, and it was a spectacle to watch one swing in the air forty feet over the deck, knowing that if it fell on me it would crush me, and I would become nothing more than a hideous splotch of splintered bone, guts, and blood.<span style=""> </span>I thought about what it would be like to die that way, and watched as the miasmic juices drained to the bottom of the bag and spilled out in vile arcs across both decks.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Paul, I’m not fucking around.<span style=""> </span>Loosen the fucking ties,”<span style=""> </span>Brian yelled again. As a rule, Brian hated the deckhands on tender boats because he thought them lazy and slow.<span style=""> </span>He felt they cost him money by being inept. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Gabe hollered across deck at Paul.<span style=""> </span>“Hey do what the captain asks, alright, Paul?” Gabe turned back to us.<span style=""> </span>The last of our bags was offloaded, and now we waited for the check.<span style=""> </span>“You guys hear that Norm on The Dog Catcher says they found The Doxy crashed up into the rocks.<span style=""> </span>A couple miles east.<span style=""> </span>No one on board.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian nodded at Gabe and then stared at Paul as he slowly fumbled with one of the lines.<span style=""> </span>“Coast Guard show up yet?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Gabe was writing out our check on a clipboard. “They’re sending out a cutter, but it might be a couple hours. Who knows, as bad as shape as that boat of his was in, Jake might of just crashed the thing to collect on it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">At that moment, part of the molding from the middle rail splintered and a screw broke loose.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian screamed at Paul.<span style=""> </span>“God damn, you fucking idiot!” He ran to the bow line to untie us before that rail gave way as well and yelled at me to untie us from the stern.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">When we were free, Brian jogged back in to the wheelhouse and steamed away from the Gene S. as fast as our boat would go.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Gabe called our boat on the radio.<span style=""> </span>“Hey, what about your check there, Cap?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian was still furious.<span style=""> </span>“Keep the fucking thing until tonight, and tell your fucking deckhand to get his fucking head out of his ass.” Brian slammed the receiver on the wheel and turned the radio off. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">There was another full day of fishing, and all the effort that entailed, beating back behind us and erased and forgotten by the day’s warm ocean breeze and the forever of the Alaskan blue sky, but I felt no grace in the afternoon.<span style=""> </span>The sense of accomplishment I usually felt after delivery was muted by the mystery of the crashed boat, and the sour taste of delivery.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">We spent the early afternoon fishing the jackline at the mouth of Nakat Bay.<span style=""> </span>The current ran hard, and it flooded on every set.<span style=""> </span>We had to pick every thirty minutes because the net would be swept a half-mile inland in that time.<span style=""> </span>It was difficult work for two to keep up with, and I thought about the struggle someone like Jake would have working a set by himself.<span style=""> </span>Most one-man crews fished farther inland where the waters were calm and the fish less plentiful. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Between sets I didn’t bother to change from my rain gear, but instead stayed on deck and studied the face of the rocks that walled off and channeled the fjord.<span style=""> </span>There were clumps of trees with gnarly gray roots that grew out of the granite, clinging to it like they were fearful of being washed away at any moment.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Brian came on deck from the cabin and stood next to me. We both just stared out at the cliffs.<span style=""> </span>An eagle glided down from one of the trees and floated across the shimmering blue surface of the water.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“I never did believe that birds were the souls of dead fisherman,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“I’m just not the superstitious type.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“You think he crashed it on purpose?” I asked Brian.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>“Guys leave boats out here all the time for one reason or another.<span style=""> </span>He wouldn’t be the first.<span style=""> </span>It would explain why he took his dog with him.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“But you don’t figure that’s what happened?”<br /><span style=""> </span>“I have a hard time believing it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Me too,” I said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>“Fuck it,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“Let’s go back up in the bay.<span style=""> </span>I need a nap before we meet back up with those tender boat assholes.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I drove the boat out about an eighth of a mile from the net, pointed it straight at the middle, and then set it to autopilot.<span style=""> </span>The bay was calm, and the net had been in the water for over an hour.<span style=""> </span>Brian had been asleep most of that time.<span style=""> </span>At that distance, I had about a minute to get on deck and piss before we ran over it over.<span style=""> </span>It was a game I played sometimes when Brian napped, and I was bored. I needed any kind of distraction that afternoon. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I could see every boat in the one mile by five mile stretch of the waterway as I pissed over the side of the boat.<span style=""> </span>I held myself and looked at the fishscales on the hairs of my knuckles and saw them glitter in the light.<span style=""> </span>It seemed like as the summer went on there were fishscales everywhere.<span style=""> </span>In the bunks, on our boots, in the food.<span style=""> </span>Under our fingernails and in our ear canals.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The boat was practically on top of the net now, and I zipped myself up and jogged back to the cabin.<span style=""> </span>I took the wheel and turned it slightly towards the net so the prop wouldn’t get caught.<span style=""> </span>I straightened it out and nodded to myself.<span style=""> </span>Pretty close this time. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I continued jogging the boat along the gear and took the binoculars from behind the radar screen on the dash.<span style=""> </span>Randy had the next set over from us, and he was combing the last fifty fathoms of his net. I could see each fish he picked: chum, chum, pink, chum, and the rest a mess of seaweed.<span style=""> </span>When he was done, he set to work cleaning a few of his fish.<span style=""> </span>Randy was unstable on deck. He didn’t have a tray to cut the fish on, and he worked on his hands and knees.<span style=""> </span>I wondered how many years of fishing he had left in him.<span style=""> </span>When he finished cleaning his fish, he went back inside and started the old wooden boat.<span style=""> </span>I looked at the name on the boat and studied the scripted, careful lettering:<span style=""> </span><i>Kimberly. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">It was Randy’s wife’s name.<span style=""> </span>Someone loved that brutal, surly man, and he loved them back. Had anyone thought to call Jake’s wife, I thought. </span><i></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I drove the boat back and forth along our net in low gear until the middle bunched and both ends hooked in on themselves and caught tree branches and seaweed.<span style=""> </span>It was long past the time we should have picked it.<span style=""> </span>Around the middle of the net there was a weird, glinting mass, and I looked through the binoculars again.<span style=""> </span>It was oddly proportioned and unlike anything I’d seen in the net.<span style=""> </span>I stared at it for a good ten seconds, and then I realized it was a loaf of bread.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I shouted down to Brian in the forecastle.<span style=""> </span>“Hey, Cap, wake up.<span style=""> </span>You gotta check this out.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Ah, uh huh, Mike.<span style=""> </span>Is it about time to pick up?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian climbed the stairs from the forecastle and yawned and scratched his stomach.<span style=""> </span>He stared out the port window at the net.<span style=""> </span>“Wow, it really turned into a shit heap.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Check out the middle,” I said and handed him the binoculars.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He peered through them.<span style=""> </span>“Whole wheat or potato?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“White?” I said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, no one gives a fuck about white,” he said and laughed.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Brian put his boots on slowly, and then we switched places, and he drove us to the north end of the net.<span style=""> </span>I went on deck and reached over the side with the gaffe hook.<span style=""> </span>I picked up the net by the buoy bag up and attached it to the drum.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">There were a few fish in the net, but mostly it was just junk.<span style=""> </span>The process was slow and my mind drifted.<span style=""> </span>I broke apart sticks in the net, and then slid them free from the meshes and tossed them overboard.<span style=""> </span>We got to the loaf of bread, and I picked it out with the hooked end of my fish picker.<span style=""> </span>I turned to throw it in our trash in the cabin when Brian spotted a dark, weird mass in the net about ten fathoms out. I could see it was encased in stems of olive brown seaweed, and it was wrapped in the green meshes many times over.<span style=""> </span>When it was halfway up the back of the boat, the hydraulics on the drum whirred in protest, and we leaned over and pulled it over the stern.<span style=""> </span>It was heavy, and my back burned with the weight.<span style=""> </span>It took us twenty minutes to get it fully unentangled, and the whole time we knew it was a dead dog. The tail came free first, and it was stiff like it was made of a heavy gauge of wire.<span style=""> </span>A couple of half eaten fish fell out as we unwrapped the layers.<span style=""> </span>When we got to the head, the left eye was open and staring out at us, but there was a hole in the head where the other eye should have been.<span style=""> </span>There was fur and flesh torn out from around the right eye socket. Something had been at eating at it, and a raggedy mess of blood vessels was the only thing left in the gaping hole in its head.<span style=""> </span>We both just stared at it.<span style=""> </span>That place where an eye should have been.<span style=""> </span>I felt angry and sick and bile rose in the back of my throat.<span style=""> </span>I wanted something to clear the taste and wondered if the tender boat had a bottle of whiskey.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Good fucking God,” Brian said.<span style=""> </span>“Let’s put in on the middle hold.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=" ;font-family:Times;font-size:10pt;" > </span>I grabbed the front legs, and Brian grabbed the back.<span style=""> </span>They were stiff and solid like the silvers and sockeyes<span style=""> </span>we’d pulled up in the first set of the day.<span style=""> </span>It was Jake’s dog.<span style=""> </span>There was no doubt. After we sat it on the hatch, I kicked it hard in the ribs, as if I thought it might suddenly hop up and be okay. I felt bad about doing it.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“We’ll finish picking the neck. Then, get the shovels from the lazarette.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I nodded.<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t say anything. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">At dusk, we anchored up and rowed our skiff out to a break in the rocks where the muddy shore led up to the woods.<span style=""> </span>We carried the dog back into the trees a ways, breathing hard and cursing the entire way because Buster was so big and water logged.<span style=""> </span>A swarm of no-see-ums followed us like a cloud, and we sat Buster in the tall grass as we<span style=""> </span>dug a hole five or six feet deep in the soft dirt. The flies bit me on the face, on the arms, and I slapped at them.<span style=""> </span>They landed around the dog’s exposed eye socket and sucked on the blood vessels until the area was just a buzzing baseball sized mass. I burned with anger and stopped digging to beat at the dog’s face with my fist, trying to clear away the flies.<span style=""> </span>Brian stared at me and said nothing, and when I stopped pounding away at the dog’s head, there were just at many flies as before. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">When we were finished, Brian rose from the dirt, panting, and pouring sweat.<span style=""> </span>“Let’s pray Jake is still out there,” he said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">And I nodded. Brian reached out his hand, and I held it while we shared a moment of silence.<span style=""> </span>But in my mind I thought of a man falling off his boat at the crest of a tall, frothing wave and then struggling to climb up the mossy cliffs around him.<span style=""> </span>I thought of the panic that would set in when the water filled his nose, his vision blurred, and his mind turned dark.<span style=""> </span>And I thought about a dog jumping over board, swimming out to help his friend, and then going under.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">I thought I’d see if The Gene S. had any liquor, and if they did, I thought I’d drink my fill. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <span style=" Times New Roman";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" ><span style=""></span></span>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-58972245141808289932011-04-23T13:43:00.000-07:002011-04-23T13:46:32.994-07:00New Bio<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizc2DpDt11kId_FyzmSLHiIJWgWl60G2LQGhGp0OdSNXRqJyiwZgF1E_JteYpj_IO5ivVNJHc4Eyn1v3T7IeNCQXp3R65vU1o1f5UWFTY6W5H3St2ioltHQWhF7NK4Zq9En_DF44VpF4HQ/s1600/springsteenflagbig.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 217px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizc2DpDt11kId_FyzmSLHiIJWgWl60G2LQGhGp0OdSNXRqJyiwZgF1E_JteYpj_IO5ivVNJHc4Eyn1v3T7IeNCQXp3R65vU1o1f5UWFTY6W5H3St2ioltHQWhF7NK4Zq9En_DF44VpF4HQ/s320/springsteenflagbig.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598883083553751634" border="0" /></a><br /><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal">Paul Vega was born in Kansas on the morning of his father’s first day as the editor of the small town newspaper, The Junction City Daily Union, thus beginning a long and complicated relationship with both the written word and his father. He was born in that sweltering summer of 1985, 4 days after the U.S. decommissioned Route 66, 4 months before the Kansas City Royals won their first and only World Series, and right smack in the middle of Bruce Springsteen’s epic “Born in the USA” tour.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">He came of age in southeastern Arizona, in the shadow of Cochise and Coronado and Kit Carson, the OK Corral, and in the cauldron of America’s longest and most violent border war.<span style=""> </span>He is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Washington, a part-time tutor, writing instructor and fisherman, and an advocate for the short story form, Kansas State University athletics, short, blonde girls, and all things Joe Strummer. </p>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-33387491998528367282011-04-21T16:41:00.000-07:002011-04-21T16:44:59.292-07:00Hungry Heart (Draft)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtrcqJgOtn2HQCC4LZ53tauYfbtbo2bi5dSsX1agVIRX-WrT5X7freWXMoI5-rCIYqdLMoMpi490IKf8GwSNZFYt22dYGv4WGM29Xl7GKW1Z79fUFZ-PVQiIBjRz7uah7Hxt4EBNX-RrV/s1600/Painted+Desert.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtrcqJgOtn2HQCC4LZ53tauYfbtbo2bi5dSsX1agVIRX-WrT5X7freWXMoI5-rCIYqdLMoMpi490IKf8GwSNZFYt22dYGv4WGM29Xl7GKW1Z79fUFZ-PVQiIBjRz7uah7Hxt4EBNX-RrV/s320/Painted+Desert.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598187028206242850" border="0" /></a><br /><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoHeader, li.MsoHeader, div.MsoHeader { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=""> </span><i>Hungry Heart</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Gabby’s dead husband had been born on this day some forty odd years ago.<span style=""> </span>Besides a stomach full of baby boy, the only thing he’d left her was a pearl handled knife, and she’d had to pawn it in the first year after he’d died to pay for formula.<span style=""> </span>The guilt had been immense, and now each year she visited his grave on his birthday and left a gift. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">This was the thought Noah woke to Friday morning and rolled over in his mind as he worked up the strength to rise from the saggy, cornflower blue couch.<span style=""> </span>He and Gabby had gotten drunk in his trailer the night before, played poker and made plans to spend the weekend in Flagstaff.<span style=""> </span>She had a friend they could stay with, just outside of town in Gray Mountain, and Noah needed to get out of the desert for a night.<span style=""> </span>It had been six months since he moved out of the hotel he owned in Mexican Hat and went to live on the reservation, and in all that time he’d yet to leave his new Navajo County home.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Somewhere in the blur of the previous night Gabby had told about her husband, Tommy, and Noah ha promised to drive her to her his grave today.<span style=""> </span>It was a hell of an odd thing, the kind of thing you promise while drunk but don’t follow up on, but he felt an obligation to her.<span style=""> </span>She and her son, Lelen, were his neighbors and the first people to talk to him after he moved to the reservation.<span style=""> </span>He had run off this to this new home on the other side of the San Juan River and spent the last few months straddling the seam between drinking to function and just disappearing completely, and now it seemed this Indian family, these friends, were the only thing giving form to his life now that his divorce, and the sour malaise it left in him, had set in</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah fixed a pot a pot of coffee and poured a half-full forty of malt liquor down the drain.<span style=""> </span>It smelled of urine and beer, and he couldn’t remember if he’d pissed in it or not.<span style=""> </span>The clock on the coffee pot read 1:30, and he was due to pick Lelen up from the bus stop pretty soon.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He left the coffee to brew and walked to the closet-sized bathroom.<span style=""> </span>Noah took the black bandana off his head and stared in the mirror, studying the scratch marks on his right temple.<span style=""> </span>They looked less irritated, less fresh, but still stung. He’d been wearing the bandana since Dawn had scratched him two days ago, and Gabby had noticed but made fun of the bandana instead of asking why he was wearing it. Noah rinsed his face and forehead, cleaned the abrasions and then put the bandana back on.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">In the late afternoon they set about prepping Noah’s truck for the weekend trip to Flagstaff.<span style=""> </span>Noah lay on his back under the truck and could hear Lelen shifting on the bench seat above him.<span style=""> </span>He’d been at the radio trying to get it working for the past half-hour.<span style=""> </span>As the oil finished draining, Noah was surprised to hear what sounded like Indian drum playing coming through the floor boards of the Chevy.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Noah! I got it working.<span style=""> </span>You hear that?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah climbed out from under the truck and rubbed his grease-blackened palms on the side of his Levis.<span style=""> </span>The music switched to Metallica.<span style=""> </span>Shit, sure enough.<span style=""> </span>It was the radio.<span style=""> </span>Only the Tuba City radio would have a playlist like that. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“I hear it.”<span style=""> </span>Noah said.<span style=""> </span>He smiled widely.<span style=""> </span>“Goddamn, that’s gotta be coming all the way from Tuba.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah was still new to the reservation, but he’d already come to find a bunch of these unexpected cultural meeting grounds.<span style=""> </span>Radio stations playing traditional songs and then speed metal.<span style=""> </span>Stands selling mutton stew next to the Safeway.<span style=""> </span>Basketball played so obsessively that if a close game headed past dark people played under moonlight and a car’s high beams rather than quit.<span style=""> </span>A Navajo Code Talkers exhibit in a Burger King off the highway. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">A week before he’d bought a tape deck at the flea market while Gabby was working in Monument Valley, and it seemed like Lelen<span style=""> </span>hadn’t gone more than a few hours since then without mentioning it.<span style=""> </span>Noah had taken to driving the kid to school since it had started two weeks ago, and the boy was excited to have a distraction from the strangling and spongy monsoonal heat that hung all about the verdant mesa tops and flooded the cab of the truck each morning. But the truth was Noah wasn’t sure how to wire the thing, and he’d given Lelen the first crack at it while he drained the oil and changed out the air filter.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>How the boy knew how to wire it was a mystery. As he stared at Lelen’s brown, smiling face through the truck’s cracked windshield, he felt a sense of pride well up in him as if the boy was his own.<span style=""> </span>He had no right to, but he felt it all the same. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah reached for his mug of coffee on the roof of the truck and took two large gulps.<span style=""> </span>He’d bought a twelve back of beer and put it on ice, but he was waiting until Gabby got home to break into it.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>The boy stopped fiddling with the knobs on the radio and hopped out of the truck.<span style=""> </span>He stood erectly.<span style=""> </span>Though only thirteen, he came up to Noah’s eye level. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“How ‘bout you let me have a drink before Mama gets home?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah laughed and flicked the dusty, salt-stained bill of Lelen’s Arizona Diamonbacks hat. Just because you’ve been doing a man’s work doesn’t mean you’re ready to drink like one.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>But it was more than that.<span style=""> </span>This was someone else’s son.<span style=""> </span>This was someone else’s <i>Indian </i><span style="font-style: normal;">son, and it wasn’t his place to share a beer even if he wanted to. The sun was dipping below the mesa which rose up behind the trailers, the shadow of the ancient red rock fast encroaching on them both. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen laughed.<span style=""> </span>“Alright Noah, but it aint’ my fault if Mom finds out you saw Dawn the other day.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah was surprised and realized the bandana had slipped off his forehead and down around his neck as he worked under the truck. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Dawn didn’t give this to me. I just bumped my head.” He lied and it sounded lame.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Yeah, alright.<span style=""> </span>Whatever you say.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah finished his coffee, snorted, and then tossed the dregs into the dirt. “And besides, ain’t you a little young to be in the business of blackmailing?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>The boy smiled. “ I’m just sayin’ if you saw Dawn you could tell us.<span style=""> </span>You know what Mom’s advice was.<span style=""> </span>She said ‘get the hell away from that two-bit sl-’”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah cut him off.<span style=""> </span>“Look, she wasn’t around, but your mom and I aren’t dating anyway.<span style=""> </span>What you tell your her is your business.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Suit yourself.” Lelen said.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">But Noah was unsure of what he’d said.<span style=""> </span>Whether he was just sick of talking about Dawn or whether he didn’t want Gabby to know, he <i>was </i><span style="font-style: normal;">hiding them.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">They stopped talking when they heard the hum of a diesel engine from somewhere far off.<span style=""> </span>Noah squinted to see down along the road where its jagged, muddy ruts met up with Highway 160.<span style=""> </span>A jeep was coming from the north and it slowed as it got towards the end of the road.<span style=""> </span>A woman and a wild, scabrous looking thing of a dog got out.<span style=""> </span>The woman waved goodbye to the driver and started slowly up the red, snaking path.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Even from a great distance he could tell it was her because of the three legged dog desperately hobbling along to keep up.<span style=""> </span>And as she came into clearer focus, Gabby’s style was unmistakable: a creased brown leather jacket, black jeans and black boots caked in dirt and turned pink by the redness of the earth.<span style=""> </span>She wore a pair of headphones held together by duct tape that brought ought the sheer blackness of her hair.<span style=""> </span>Her cavernous army surplus bag hung over her right shoulder stretching down to where it met a large carving knife attached to her belt.<span style=""> </span>The dog wore a harness and there was a cloth pouch sewn into the side where, depending on her mood, he knew she kept a bottle of water or a flask-sized bottle of rum. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>When she was close enough to him, he turned to the cooler in the bed of the truck and pulled out two fresh beers.<span style=""> </span>He tossed one at her and she caught it without breaking stride.<span style=""> </span>She continued walking until she reached the front door of her trailer where she put down the bag and removed the leash from her dog. Gabby motioned to the dog to sit, but it didn’t move. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">She had a complicated relationship with the mutt.<span style=""> </span>Had found his missing leg sad and endearing when she first spotted him in a pack of dogs chasing a cow in the parking lot of the Kayenta Texaco, and now took him to work every day in Monument Valley where she sold wooden figurines.<span style=""> </span>When he frustrated her by refusing to be house broken and drinking from any open beer, she had decided to name him Reagan, after the president, and though she loved him she was always complaining about his malfeasance: “Reagan’ll hump anything that moves.”<span style=""> </span>“Reagan was gnawing on a fat white lady today.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Reagan. Sit!” she said, and the dog squatted down gingerly. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Noah smiled. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“You’re still going with the hair metal look I see.” She pointed at the bandana. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Yeah, I still can’t find my ball cap, but I got a bunch of these.<span style=""> </span>Used to use them as rags for working on my truck.<span style=""> </span>Guess I just gotta stick it out I get a new hat.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Suit yourself, “ she said.<span style=""> </span>“You could at least pick one with a design that makes you look less Bret Michaels and more Bruce Springsteen.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">They’d all loaded into the truck, Lelen, Gabby, Reagan, and a cooler full of beer and driven west towards Tuba City.<span style=""> </span>There were rickety, wooden stands all along the highway with dirt parking lots and banners at each with some variation of the phrase “Genuine Indian Goods.”<span style=""> </span>Further on, where the rocks became banded with reds and grays, there were a few pull offs with handmade signs advertising “Dinosaur Tracks.”<span style=""> </span>Gabby and Lelen had laughed and pointed out into the desert where a handful of signs advertised the “Dino Tracks.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“We used to do that,” Gabby said.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“What? Work at one of those?” Noah said, pointing out into the desert. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, in those days we still lived in Tuba.<span style=""> </span>Mama was helping me get back on my feet, and she had a friend who owned one.<span style=""> </span>We didn’t make bad money at it either.<span style=""> </span>I was selling my carvings, and Lelen was the cutest little runt of a hustler you’ve ever seen.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Lelen laughed.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah, we had this system set up where I’d stay hidden until Mom had a sale in the bag and then pop out from behind the stand. <span style=""> </span>I’d say, ‘excuse me, sir, but would you like to buy some corpolite? Take a real live part of the dinosaur world back home with you.’<span style=""> </span>And the man would say, ‘Geez, son.<span style=""> </span>What’s coprolite?’ And I’d holler, ‘Dino poop,’ and you can just imagine the look on the face of this Phoenix type businessman with this ragged five year old Indian boy smiling up at him trying to shove a handful of fossilized dinosaur shit in his face and his wife and kids right behind him.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Gabby broke in, “He’d give them those big doe eyes, all sweet and innocent like he had just popped out of bed and didn’t spend his whole day hustling tourists by the side of the highway.<span style=""> </span>And they’d either pay him out of surprise or pity or down right admiration for Lelen’s pitch.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">After they’d visited Gabby’s husband’s grave, they’d reached Tuba City and pulled off the main road and towards a small neighborhood of dirt roads, trailers, and HUD homes.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The trailers were within a rectangular chain link fence and a couple of shanties, and other pre-fab houses stood off in the southwestern corner.<span style=""> </span>A ragged looking dog sniffed through garbage while two girls tossed a basketball back and forth over a rusted Chevy.<span style=""> </span>Gabby and Lelen and Reagan walked up to a trailer where an old woman with thick and braided head of gray hair greeted them on the porch.<span style=""> </span>Noah made eye contact with her and lifted his hand in acknowledgement, but she just stared at him from the corner of her eye and continued talking to Gabby. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;">Later, as he drove them west into the setting sun Noah watched the dusk linger all around. He’d seen thousands of desert sunsets, but on this open stretch of Highway 191, on this Friday night, something caused him to speed up...65, 70, 80, 90 miles per hour. Gabby didn't comment. There was only garbled singing on the radio, and the soughing of the wind through the cab of the truck. All across Noah's line of sight the pale orange merged with the erupting red and violet, the shattering of the azure sky.<span style=""> </span>And he felt a strange feeling came over him like he wanted to chase the sunset forever, to bleed every moment, every element out of its dying colors.<span style=""> </span>He pushed the truck hard until it shook and felt like it would fly apart. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.1pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah was still running over the visit to the gravesite in his mind. He’d been unsure what to do and had just leaned up against the truck with Lelen and petted Reagan.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Gabby had pulled out her pack of Winstons and lit two, switching between cigarettes on each drag.<span style=""> </span>It was like she had lit one for her husband. Was communing with him in some unspoken way they could never understand.<span style=""> </span>Smoke had curled out her broad nose, and the distant lights of Tuba city fluttered on in the east. She’d finished the cigarette in her right hand and put it out on her left boot and then inverted the process with the other cigarette. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Gabby had laughed to herself and turned around from Tommy’s grave, walking towards the back of the truck. She’d reached in the bed, and pulled out the shovel they’d brought. She had walked back to the grave and worked over some dirt next to it with her boot heel, and then started digging shovelfuls out from the red earth.<span style=""> </span>She’d breathed heavily from the effort, and then went to a knee and placed the book in the hole.<span style=""> </span>When she’d finished putting the dirt on top of the book, and she’d smoothed over the red hump on top of the hole with the underside of her boot.<span style="font-family:Times;"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;">“What book did you give him?” Noah said. They had remained silent for most of an hour as the buttes closed in on the sides of the highway and walled them off from the day.<span style=""> </span>And now the night was finally winning out, about 30 miles outside Flagstaff, and they were beyond the Painted Desert and the pine forests ghosted their peripheral vision. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"><span style=""> </span>“<i>Blue Horses Rush In</i></span><span style="font-family:Times;">,” she said.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;">Noah stared blankly.<span style=""> </span>It did not register. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;">“Luci Tapahonso,” she explained.<span style=""> </span>“Tommy liked her poetry. I thought it was weird when we first met.<span style=""> </span>This broke Indian cowboy reading poetry in his spare time.<span style=""> </span>But now it makes sense to me now.<span style=""> </span>And sometimes when I read what he used to read, it’s like I can hear his voice talking to me.<span style=""> </span>It’s like a shared and whispered chant of loneliness.”<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;">Noah stared at her for a while.<span style=""> </span>He thought what she’d done seemed a tender and unique gesture, another side of this person he was coming to like more and more.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style="font-family:Times;"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"><span style=""> </span>“You saw Dawn the other day didn’t you?”<span style=""> </span>Gabby said loudly. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"><span style=""> </span>It was as if she had read his mind, and he jerked a little at the mention of her name. He took his left hand off the steering wheel and touched the bandana.<span style=""> </span>Just the thought of her and he could immediately see her face buried in the trucker’s crotch, working his privates like a greedy javelina on the underbelly of a scrub oak.<span style=""> </span>He felt sick.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"><span style=""> </span>“I saw her.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know how much she saw me. ”<span style=""> </span>The words came out quietly, and he didn’t know if Gabby had heard them.<span style=""> </span>In any case, she didn’t ask him again, and he was thankful for that. He was embarrassed, but it was more than just embarrassment. He hadn’t wanted Gabby to know that he saw Dawn for the same reason he woudln’t talk about an ex-lover to a new one.<span style=""> </span>But Gabby wasn’t his lover.<span style=""> </span>He wasn’t really sure what they were becoming. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family:Times;"><span style=""> </span>They had dinner on the outskirts of of Flagstaff and had a drink before they went to the bar.<span style=""> </span></span>Jack Ryan’s sat on the northwest side of town out where old Route 66 and I-40 met up.<span style=""> </span>For a quarter mile on either side broken bottles and cans of beer littered the highway, creating a drunkards walking trail between Coconino County and the reservation.<span style=""> </span>When they pulled into the parking lot, a leather-jacketed fat man was peeing next to a dumpster.<span style=""> </span>He tottered, holding himself with one hand and waving the other out in the air for balance.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>They parked and walked past the peeing man towards the entrance where there were three Mexicans standing up against an old truck. They were passing a bottle in a sack and smoking cigarettes.<span style=""> </span>They stared hard at Noah and Gabby and he could feel their eyes following him as he pushed open the heavy, wooden door.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>There taxidermied deer and elk, a bevy of birds and even an evil looking wild pig mounted on the walls all about the room and a mirror behind the bar that ran the length of the wall and reflected the crowd.<span style=""> </span>A strange mix of bikers, college kids, Indians, Meixcans, and cowboys. It was not the kind of bar he would have chosen, and he felt unsure there.<span style=""> </span>But Gabby was excited about it.<span style=""> </span>Had told the mythic history of Jack Ryan’s the night before.<span style=""> </span>Word circulated that years ago a man with a beef over gambling debts had followed another into the bathroom and cut his throat from ear to ear while he pissed.<span style=""> </span>That a couple had once owned the bar together and lived upstairs until the wife shotgunned her husband when she caught him after hours with a waitress in the beer cooler. And Gabby swore her friend Maria had been there when a drunk Indian chased an errant pool shot as it bounded over the edge of the table and out into Route 66.<span style=""> </span>The drunk had gotten back the pool ball but been laid open by a station wagon containing a family headed to the Grand Canyon.<span style=""> </span>He was split in two and his skull was crushed causing the brain to pop out and splatter on the asphalt like an eggplant. A crowd had gathered to watch while a country band playing inside.<span style=""> </span>The bartender just called an ambulance and went on serving.<span style=""> </span>Even offering free drinks to the EMTs who scraped the man off the road. And as Noah looked at his face in the mirror, unshaven and deeply darkened from the summer sun, the salt-stained bandana high on his head, he thought maybe he belonged here.<span style=""> </span>That his own misery paled in comparison to this history of violence and made him feel anonymous.<span style=""> </span>He relaxed and was glad to be there with Gabby.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to get drunk, and he didn’t want to see anyone he knew.<span style=""> </span>It felt like that was all he’d ever wanted, really. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Gabby bought the first pitcher of beer even though he insisted against it. “Don’t worry,” she said and smiled, “you’ll get plenty more opportunities to get me back.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>She walked to the jukebox and fed it quarters.<span style=""> </span>A Springsteen song came on.<span style=""> </span>Gabby was always playing Springsteen and Noah thought it was a funny choice for an Indian woman.<span style=""> </span>He recognized the track by the rough and worn texture of Springsteen’s voice but couldn’t name the song. Something about being down on your luck and your girl not loving you anymore, but wasn’t that half of Springsteen’s catalog?<span style=""> </span>Wasn’t that half of all songs?<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>They picked out a pool table and started playing.<span style=""> </span>Noah had heard Gabby was good, but he was skeptical because his source on this was Gabby.<span style=""> </span>He’d only ever heard her brag about two things: her son and her ability to play pool, and getting drunk tended to magnify her own estimation of both.<span style=""> </span>And she was always telling stories. Wild and dubious stories about everything from the origins of the scar on her cheek (it came from when she used to rodeo) to how she acquired her double-wide (she won it drag racing).<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">It didn’t take long to convince Noah that Gabby was telling the truth, at least about playing pool. He broke, missed his first shot, and then sat back as she went to work destroying him. They played a couple games but she was never threatened, missing just enough to keep him interested, but not enough to have to give it her full attention. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Six ball, side pocket.” Gabby hit the ball true and it went in.<span style=""> </span>They were betting in beer instead of dollars, and he already owed her two pitchers.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">She moved to the other side of the table and lined up another shot.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah, I saw Bruce at the Coliseum.<span style=""> </span>It was in ’85.<span style=""> </span>Before I married Tommy.<span style=""> </span>Before I had Lelen. Shit, during Reagan.<span style=""> </span>Four, side pocket.”<span style=""> </span>The music was loud and she was practically shouting. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The shot rattled home, and Gabby took her beer and swiveled her hips as she walked to the other end of the table.<span style=""> </span>Noah’s eyes followed the arc of the skin-tight Levis over her butt.<span style=""> </span>She had a good full ass.<span style=""> </span>Healthy and well-proportioned and not at all like the Dawn’s bony backside. He smiled to himself.<span style=""> </span>It was like he’d been so wrapped up in Dawn, he’d forgotten about the simplicity of attraction.<span style=""> </span>And he wondered: Was this a first date of sorts?<span style=""> </span>If someone saw him and her together, would they assume they were a couple?<span style=""> </span>He’d put a lot of effort hiding his forehead from Gabby and Lelen, and now he wasn’t entirely sure why.<span style=""> </span>Gabby might not have fit the model for the kind of woman he was attracted to (if such a thing even existed), but to know her was to know a good time.<span style=""> </span>And more than a good time, there was a passion to her that was infectious and that had been missing for his life for a long time. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">She lined up another shot and continued with the story.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah, we rode the bus all day from Kayenta to Holbrook to Phoenix and ended up meeting a bunch of End of Times looking Mexicans at the Phoenix Greyhound station.<span style=""> </span>I turned on the whole ‘I’m not from around here’ charm and before Maria and me knew it they were giving us shrooms, and we’d scammed a ride with one of their friends to the fairgrounds.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“We got down there and snuck in through a gap in the bullshit carny fence they had set up. And you know the Coliseum, that great saddle-shaped roof it’s got? It gets me thinking about going to rodeos as a girl and all the cute young cowboys that used to come through town. <span style=""> </span>I’m thinking about them when Springsteen comes out with his shirt half-unbuttoned, chest gleaming.<span style=""> </span>Me, I’m half out of my mind, licking the sweat off my arm I’m so thirsty, and all I can think about is riding Springsteen. Or, him riding <i>me</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.<span style=""> </span>The thought’s repeating in my head, and I’m laughing and vibrating cause of the rumble of the first song, the shrooms in my stomach, the whiskey we’ve been drinking.<span style=""> </span>Maria and my new End of Times friends probably think I’m insane by this point, but something happens:<span style=""> </span>I recognize he’s playing ‘Badlands,’ and at that moment it’s meant just for me. I’ve come all the way from the Painted Desert, another kind of badlands, and Bruce knows this.<span style=""> </span>I tear the label off the whiskey bottle and write every song in the set down on the backside of the label.<span style=""> </span>Nineteen, plus a four song encore.<span style=""> </span>Still have the set-list.<span style=""> </span>The handwriting on it looks like I was taking notes while in the bed of a truck that was four wheeling. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Anyways, we spent the night on the fairgrounds in sleeping bags, and I got dropped off at the Greyhound station the next day, ass broke and hungover.<span style=""> </span>Didn’t get back home until three days later after Mama wired me $40, and I hustled another twenty off some winos playing pool in a pit of a bar downtown.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">She stopped talking and laid the pool cue down.<span style=""> </span>She’d been playing the whole time and knocked in two more shots during the story. He’d lost again. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">She walked towards him until she was within a few feet. “Yeah, I always say since Tommy died I’d never re-marry, but it’s a lie.<span style=""> </span>I’d re-marry if Springsteen asked.”<span style=""> </span>She laughed to herself.<span style=""> </span>“You got the next couple rounds?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah,” he said.<span style=""> </span>The song on the jukebox changed to the next Springsteen song she’d picked.<span style=""> </span>This one he recognized.<span style=""> </span>It was one where his voice sounded impossibly high and young and hopeful.<span style=""> </span>And the keyboard and backup singers gave it the feeling of Motown, or soul.<span style=""> </span>“Hungry Heart?”<span style=""> </span>He said to Gabby.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yup,” she said.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">They took a seat in a booth opposite each other and he poured them fresh beers. <span style=""> </span>The bar was a big open rectangle and there was a dance floor in front of the pool tables.<span style=""> </span>Everyone one in the place seemed good and drunk and things were getting rowdy now. There were two men in a shoving match by the jukebox who then locked arms in an awkward kind of dance.<span style=""> </span>A college kid sat at a corner table looking like he might vomit at any moment, and there was a puddle on the bar stool below him like he’d pissed himself.<span style=""> </span>By the bathroom, a man with two dark braids running down his back was pulling something from his oversized coat and handing it to a woman. He seemed to know everyone, but was there with no one, and occasionally disappeared into the bathroom with a stranger only to emerge once again by himself. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Maria, lives up at Gray Mountain,” Gabby said.<span style=""> </span>“She said she’d let us crash with her tonight.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah nodded. “Right.” He practically shouted it and realized how good and warm and drunk he was feeling from all the beer.<span style=""> </span>He was feeling energized by the crowd and was starting to see Gabby in a way he never had before.<span style=""> </span>Something at the gravesite had changed things. <i>That whispered chant of loneliness</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You really do that every year?” he said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“What?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Go out there and give your old man a gift.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, of course,” she said.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You mind if I ask how long he’s been gone.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Twelve years.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“It’s a helluva thing to do. Most people would move on at some point.”<span style=""> </span>Noah grimaced.<span style=""> </span>He regretted saying that. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, well when you find a good one you start comparing everyone to him, and it’s a hard thing for a man to compete with a ghost.<span style=""> </span>Plus, there aren’t all that great of prospects out there.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Not a lot of rock stars on the reservation?” he said and laughed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“No, just white guys running away from their crazy wives.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He felt bad and looked at the braided man by the bathroom and thought about what he was doing in there. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>She kicked him gently in the shin.<span style=""> </span>“Relax. At least you’re not too ugly, especially when you’re not wearing that dumb bandana.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He looked at her and she reached across the small table and pushed the bandana off his forehead so it drooped around his neck.<span style=""> </span>The smoky air stung the scratches, and his forehead felt naked and raw like when you remove a band-aid after a couple of days. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“That’s better,” she said, and touched his cheek gently with her thumb as she pulled back.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">She smiled at him and didn’t say anything about the scratches. He felt at ease and better than he had in a long time. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“People probably think I’m crazy. Burying books out in the desert for dead men. But you know, you do what you do to try to make it better.<span style=""> </span>Better, even if you can’t ever make it right”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“I guess that’s what I got to figure out.” he said. “A way to at least get forward.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Well, there’s no blueprint. I nearly died that first year without Tommy.<span style=""> </span>Sold everything I could because I didn’t have any energy to work.<span style=""> </span>I buried the knife he gave me only to dig it back up and pawn it for formula and whiskey.<span style=""> </span>I remember being there in the pawn shop with the knife, not a fucking cent to my name and my mom with Lelen on her shoulder going on about ‘how are you going to go and give away a dead man’s gift.<span style=""> </span>That makes you just about the biggest Indian giver in the world.’<span style=""> </span>You’d think I was giving <i>Lelen </i><span style="font-style: normal;">away.<span style=""> </span>It was a while before I could bring myself to try at life again, but I saw Lelen getting bigger and he started talking and I realized I was checked out.<span style=""> </span>My mom was being his mother.<span style=""> </span>Eventually I got back the knife, started back into carving those wooden figures and got into working the Monument Valley tour.” She smiled and pulled a cigarette from the pack in her shirt pocket.<span style=""> </span>She lit it and blew smoke softly out her nose. In that moment, he thought she was truly beautiful.<span style=""> </span>“Sometimes you just gotta mature.<span style=""> </span>Growing up is really just realizing you can’t have what you had, but at least you ain’t dead.”<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Who said that?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Me.<span style=""> </span>Or maybe it’s a Springsteen song, I forget.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He laughed and they both sipped their beers.<span style=""> </span>It was getting late, on towards last call, and he envisioned the drive back to Gray Mountain and the trailer park and what he’d do the next day.<span style=""> </span>He’d play basketball with Lelen and maybe even drive into Mexican Hat and fix up his old place.<span style=""> </span>He realized it was the first time in a long time he’d thought about anything past the end of the day in front of him.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>They were nearly finished with the pitcher when two red-faced and sweaty men approached the booth.<span style=""> </span>They were both Indian with light complexions, maybe even related, but the one on the right was taller and older, dressed in tight denim jeans, boots, and a maroon collared shirt with the top two buttons unfastened. His forehead was full of deep wrinkles and he had pock marks all over his bulbous cheeks. The combined effect was that it made it hard to tell if his was 35 years old or 60.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“What’s a matter, Gabby.<span style=""> </span>You don’t say Hi anymore?”<span style=""> </span>the wrinkly man said. He<span style=""> </span>looked at Noah and grinned. The young one stared blankly and lit a cigarette. He had on a leather bomber jacket over the starched, tanned uniform of a tribal cop, but he was so fresh faced Noah thought it looked like a Halloween costume on him.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“You two friends?” said the wrinkled man. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Good friends,” Gabby said.<span style=""> </span>“Very good friends.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“I’m Bert,” the older man said and reached out his hand. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Wrinkles,” Gabby said.<span style=""> </span>“Everyone on the reservation calls him Wrinkles.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah stood and shook his hand. “Noah.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“This is Roy.” He pointed to the uniformed kid.<span style=""> </span>“He’s my nehphew.<span style=""> </span>He just graduated from the academy today. Following in his uncle’s legacy.<span style=""> </span>We’re celebrating so drinks are on me.<span style=""> </span>A friend of Gabby’s is a friend of mine.<span style=""> </span>Mind if we sit down?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Okay,” Noah said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">But he was sorry to have to share the space.<span style=""> </span>The two cops sat down and ordered drinks for everyone and for a time they sat in a tense sort of quiet.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“We’re headed out in a little,” Noah said.<span style=""> </span>“Just long enough to finish this pitcher.” He looked at Gabby, figuring she’d agree, but the look on her face terrified him.<span style=""> </span>Something dark and distant like she was grappling with an unpleasant memory. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Yeah, yeah, sure, of course,” Wrinkles said.<span style=""> </span>He sat across from Noah and the nephew, Roy, sat next to Noah, blocking his path from leaving the booth.<span style=""> </span>He stunk of liquor and beer and body odor, and Noah wondered how long they’d been at it.<span style=""> </span>Noah looked across the booth at Gabby and smiled at her and she forced a smile back.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Good friends, huh?” Wrinkles said.<span style=""> </span>He was drinking a whiskey on the rocks and placed the glass hard on the table so some of it spilled. “Shit, Gabby and me go way back, back before she was even married back. Back then I had to had out a traffic ticket just to get a woman to <i>talk</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to me he said.<span style=""> </span>I was so goddamned ugly.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The nephew laughed too loudly and slurred, “You still <i>are </i><span style="font-style: normal;">ugly, Unk.”<span style=""> </span>He took a bottle from his jacket pocket and poured some into his drink.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Wrinkles threw back his head and rolled his eyes, but they went far back in his head like he was going to pass out right there, but then quickly his head slammed back down.<span style=""> </span>They were packed tightly into the booth, the table wet and covered with glasses, and Noah felt like he had to piss.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“So you two are good friends?” Wrinkles repeated.<span style=""> </span>“I hope you know what you’re getting into,” he said to Noah.<span style=""> </span>“This one doesn’t go with just anyone he said.<span style=""> </span>You wanna get to know her you practically got to beat it out of her.<span style=""> </span>Some people get to wondering if ol’ Gabby even likes men anymore.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Just cause I never liked <i>you</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> doesn’t mean anything like that.” Gabby was back in the conversation now.<span style=""> </span>“I just never like your shriveled ass, but there are other men in the room who still got ones worth sticking, even if you don’t.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He grinned widely.<span style=""> </span>“Shit, Gabby.<span style=""> </span>You don’t mean that.” He turned to Noah.<span style=""> </span>“She don’t mean that.<span style=""> </span>We go way back. Way back.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah was uneasy and turned to the nephew.<span style=""> </span>“So that’s a helluva thing, you being a cop. Lot of power carrying a gun and everything.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Not too much,” the nephew said coolly and in too sober a voice. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Wrinkles focused his attention on Noah.<span style=""> </span>“So we know what her deal is, but what’s yours? <span style=""> </span>Where’s your woman?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah was starting to get annoyed and said nothing. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“What I mean to say is you must have some big, white sweet thing back at home.<span style=""> </span>Maybe even a whole litter of white babies, but yet here you are with someone else.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Hey, Unk, ease up,” the nephew said. “Have a drink.” He pulled the bottle back out of his jacket and poured more into his uncle’s glass.<span style=""> </span>It was empty and he left it on the table in front of Noah.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“I had one in Mexican Hat,” Noah said, “but it didn’t work out.<span style=""> </span>Not that it’s any of your damn business.”<span style=""> </span>Noah didn’t know why he told the truth, other than he felt it was the only way to deal with this sort of belligerence. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Mexican Hat!” Wrinkles practically yelled.<span style=""> </span>“Where we hear about that, Roy?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“On the scanner in the cruiser,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“Bunch of people off the rez getting strung out and busted up in that shitbox.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You from Mexcian Hat then, huh?” Wrinkles said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah said nothing. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Mexican Hat, huh? Where all those white girls are getting up on Indian guys just to get a fix.<span style=""> </span>Imagine that.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah was furious and rose to leave.<span style=""> </span>Gabby stood too, but Wrinkles grabbed her wrist. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Relax, Noah, relax.<span style=""> </span>Bet you’re thinking here’s this fucking drunk Indian and what the hell should I do next?<span style=""> </span>Bet you’re thinking you gotta defend ol’ Gabby here?<span style=""> </span>That you’ll kick my reservation ass in, right?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah looked around to see if anyone had noticed them, but everyone was too drunk. “I’m thinking you need to let go of her and get the fuck out of here.<span style=""> </span>That’s what I’m thinking.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>“Whoa, come on guys.<span style=""> </span>We’re just talking here.<span style=""> </span>I’m just fucking around.<span style=""> </span>No one has any reason to leave.” He smiled and Noah could see long, thin patches of hair over his bulging, pock-marked checks.<span style=""> </span>They were grotesque and Noah imagined getting Wrinkles on the ground and stomping him in the face with his boot until his cheeks popped and oozed their bloody seed.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Wrinkles let go of Gabby’s wrist.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah, this is all just talk.<span style=""> </span>Just playing around unless maybe Noah don’t want to take it that way.<span style=""> </span>Unless maybe Noah’s old lady is back in Mexican Hat right now.<span style=""> </span>One of those women we heard about all over the scanner, shooting it between their toes and in their butts, sucking dicks for crank. Unless maybe right now while Noah’s here with this woman who ain’t his wife, while we’re here just getting on great and without a fucking care in the world, Noah’s wife is back up in Utah<span style=""> </span>getting down on someone else’s meat.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>There was nothing else to say.<span style=""> </span>Noah turned to get past the nephew, but he stood and blocked his way from leaving the booth. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Get the fuck out of my way.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Make me,” said the kid. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah pushed the kid as hard as he could and he fell back out of the booth into another table.<span style=""> </span>Noah scooted out of the booth and Gabby came out after him.<span style=""> </span>They made it to the parking a few steps from the truck, but then Noah felt a huge weight crash on him from behind and knock the air from his lungs.<span style=""> </span>Wrinkles had tackled him, and now they wrestled in the parking lot and a small crowd gathered.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>The nephew had followed them out and tried to grab Gabby, but she pulled her knife from her belt and slashed at the air in front of her.<span style=""> </span>“Get the fuck away from me,”<span style=""> </span>Noah heard her say.<span style=""> </span>The nephew stood paralyzed and didn’t help his uncle for fear of getting cut. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>But Wrinkles was a big guy and had gotten the upper hand and now stood up and kicked Noah in the ribs.<span style=""> </span>He kicked him again, and Noah felt his mouth fill with blood.<span style=""> </span>He felt he would pass out, and that this was it and that he might not get back up from another kick, and with the strength he had left he reached out and caught Wrinkles’s<span style=""> </span>boot and<span style=""> </span>in mid air and twisted his leg.<span style=""> </span>He yanked the leg and the older man fell and hit his head hard on the ground.<span style=""> </span>Noah stood slowly and nearly fell over, but then he gathered himself and kicked Wrinkles in the face.<span style=""> </span>He saw a fist-sized rock in the parking lot and thought of smashing in the man’s face.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to climb onto his chest and put his thumbs into eye sockets. He wanted to see the blood from his own mouth dripping onto Wrinkles.<span style=""> </span>He could see the ugly man’s broken nose bleeding profusely as Noah pressed hard into his eye sockets with his thumbs.<span style=""> </span>All he wanted now was to hurt this person as much as he possibly could.<span style=""> </span>To hurt this person who he was sure had hurt Gabby.<span style=""> </span>As if he could make everything right by inflicting as much pain as possible on this person.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to watch Wrinkles gasping for breath, to push his thumbs deeper and deeper into Wrinkles’s eyes sockets until he screamed and bled from them.<span style=""> </span>He wanted to see them explode like grapes under the head of a hammer, wanted to feel their juices run over the bloodied crevices of his knuckles, but from somewhere far off he could hear Gabby yelling, “Noah, Noah let’s go.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah gradually came out of his fantasy and left the man laying in a fetal position in the parking lot.<span style=""> </span>Gabby had put down her knife and the nephew rushed over to his uncle’s side.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Wrinkles yelled something over the crowd.<span style=""> </span>He yelled, “We’re old friends,<span style=""> </span>we’re old friends!<span style=""> </span>But she wants a white guy with a fat wife!”<span style=""> </span>Noah heard him say it, but then the crowd and the jukebox drowned him out.<span style=""> </span>People started filing back into the bar, and Noah and Gabby kept walking towards the truck.<span style=""> </span>The truck would take them to Maria’s and Gray Mountain.<span style=""> </span>They would eventually get home, together. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>They drove north on 89 towards Gray Mountain mostly in silence, until Gabby told him to take a county road to get to her friend’s house.<span style=""> </span>Noah was relieved to get off the highway.<span style=""> </span>He’d kept looking into his rearview mirror every quarter mile to see if someone was following.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t think they would follow but he wasn’t sure. That kind of drunk was dangerous, but he thought they’d come to their senses.<span style=""> </span>They were cops after all.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>The county road to Maria’s house was an unfinished road and the Chevy bounded loudly down the path, shooting up gravel.<span style=""> </span>The radio was on but it was just white noise at this time of night.<span style=""> </span>The wind was blowing hard outside and the truck swayed from side to side from the force.<span style=""> </span>There were dust devils off in the desert that looked like mini tornados in the moonlight, and there were high banks of the summer clouds that brought the monsoonal rains.<span style=""> </span>It was getting on toward 4 in the morning and the sky was just starting to lighten. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>They were a mile or two onto the county road when something ran out in front of them. It was stocky and pig sized.<span style=""> </span>Noah swerved and nearly ran off the shoulder.<span style=""> </span>He thought he crashed into a grove of mesquite trees for sure before he corrected and got back on the road.<span style=""> </span>He watched the chunky beast in the rearview mirror bound off into the underside of brush beside the road. The adrenaline shocked them out of silence.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Some fucking night,” Gabby said.<span style=""> </span>She pulled the bottle of rum from under the seat and took a swig.<span style=""> </span>“I thought you would kill Wrinkles from the look on your face.” She passed it to Noah.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah took a drink.<span style=""> </span>“I thought you were going to cut up his nephew.” He laughed. “You and Wrinkles go back a ways, huh?” He felt sorry for asking and realized the full answer to his question was something he didn’t want to know. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Unfortunately,” she said and she started crying. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“What is it he asked?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>She was silent for a while and reached out and took a drink from the bottle.<span style=""> </span>“Just thank you,” she said.<span style=""> </span>“Thank you.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Of course,” he said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“Look, don’t get down about what he said back there.<span style=""> </span>Dawn and all that.<span style=""> </span>That’s not your fault. You’re a good man.”<span style=""> </span>She leaned across the bench seat and gave him a kiss on the cheek.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>It felt hot and good and he couldn’t remember the last time a woman other than Dawn had kissed him.<span style=""> </span>He watched the cyanine sky rising up behind them in the east and saw the outline of the new day and felt that things would be okay.<span style=""> </span>He reached over and touched Gabby’s hand and squeezed it gently.<span style=""> </span>There was a huge cloud of dust trailing them, whipped up by the truck and the wind, and faintly, just faintly, he thought he saw a car pull onto the road behind them, and then sirens red and blue coming out of the haze. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /><span style=""> </span><i></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.1pt; text-indent: 35.9pt; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-54890898200281027182011-03-04T17:34:00.000-08:002011-03-04T17:40:57.829-08:00A Few Simple Things (1st Draft)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghk9rwI1GIUkSoDe08J5Tb0MuP08dec_9VNZ-EQS2dRqErTI-VmYlNUQ_KB3zm8SHarvYFbwbYV2PTHJDnHqwLBOvLJdlyAx-9gfoS-WxjQPH2_ZQO1ulmZNck-woa33ZdUgFlSdLT1fp_/s1600/IMG_2147.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghk9rwI1GIUkSoDe08J5Tb0MuP08dec_9VNZ-EQS2dRqErTI-VmYlNUQ_KB3zm8SHarvYFbwbYV2PTHJDnHqwLBOvLJdlyAx-9gfoS-WxjQPH2_ZQO1ulmZNck-woa33ZdUgFlSdLT1fp_/s320/IMG_2147.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5580404067661803378" border="0" /></a><br /><style>@font-face { font-family: "Times New Roman"; }@font-face { font-family: "Arial Narrow Italic"; }@font-face { font-family: "Apple Casual"; }@font-face { font-family: "Brush Script MT Italic"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoHeader, li.MsoHeader, div.MsoHeader { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }</style> <p class="MsoNormal"><i>A Few Simple Things</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah had finally realized their days of running the hotel together were finished. Things hadn’t been right for a long time, years maybe.<span style=""> </span>That much he knew. But the nerve to call Dawn had only come to him a few mornings earlier.<span style=""> </span>He’d sat in his bathrobe drinking a can of Schlitz and staring out his trailer’s window at the red mass of Rain God Mesa. He watched it for long time and saw the summer monsoon clouds develop and cast shadows over the valley, over the snaking line of the highway, over the small clumps of sheep and the horses and the people on them.<span style=""> </span>He dialed his wife’s mother’s house and was surprised to find out Dawn was still staying there.<span style=""> </span>He asked her to meet him at the hotel.<span style=""> </span>She’d sounded sober, but he could never tell anymore.<span style=""> </span>In any case, she said she’d be there. He called the lawyer next and asked him to mail the papers.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">After that, there was little else to do.<span style=""> </span>He’d brewed a pot of coffee and then traded his bathrobe for sweats and went outside.<span style=""> </span>He picked up a basketball on Gabby’s porch and started shooting buckets on Lelen’s hoop.<span style=""> </span>He thought about his wife.<span style=""> </span>He’d told her he missed her.<span style=""> </span>He wished he hadn’t, but it was true.<span style=""> </span>Maybe they’d just talk, he thought.<span style=""> </span>Maybe another shot in rehab was still in the cards. Why else had he kept the bar open?<span style=""> </span>Why else was he continuing to meet the Yazzie brothers? For a long time, these thoughts repeated as he rained in shots from all over the uneven slab of concrete he’d poured between their trailers.<span style=""> </span>He’d gotten to know them well these last few months.<span style=""> </span>They were propping him up in a way like s sort of surrogate family, though neither of them needed him.<span style=""> </span>They were both tough and used to making it on their own, but pouring the makeshift court had made him feel useful. Noah spun on the concrete, bounced the ball and drained another shot.<span style=""> </span>He envisioned finally beating Lelen in a game of one on one that afternoon.<span style=""> </span>The kid was talented and tall and lanky for his age.<span style=""> </span>Leading scorer on his middle school team.<span style=""> </span>Noah smiled.<span style=""> </span>It was a good, simple thing to think about something other than Dawn.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah drove in to Mexican Hat two days later. There were weeds in the courtyard of the San Juan Inn and it sat empty, languishing in what should have been the prime summer months of tourist season.<span style=""> </span>The bar he owned was across the parking lot from the hotel.<span style=""> </span>The bartender, Jim, had run the place for him since he’d moved, and he was thinking about selling it to him once he got his debts paid off.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Dawn was nowhere to be found, and Noah busied himself with chores while he waited. He pulled the weeds and checked the mail. There was an envelope with a note from Jim and a few hundred dollars.<span style=""> </span>The package from the lawyer was there too, but he was still unsure what he’d do with it.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah set about hammering a “For Sale” sign into the hotel’s courtyard. It had been closed since he moved to the reservation six months ago, but the sign would make it official.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t expect anyone to buy it.<span style=""> </span>In fact, he didn’t care if anyone did. It was just a thing he’d decided needed to be done.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">With each blow of the hammer, Noah could feel the ring in his pocket rubbing against his thigh. The damn ring.<span style=""> </span>Another decision that had to be made.<span style=""> </span>Noah finished pounding the sign into the clay and walked to his truck where he placed the hammer on the passenger’s seat.<span style=""> </span>He closed the door and stared at the Chevy.<span style=""> </span>The paint job looked like a relief map, and part of the frame near the front, passenger’s side wheel well was being eaten away like some feral desert creature had been gnawing at it.<span style=""> </span>It resembled the valley itself, a by-product of weather and age and all brown and red and orange. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">He’d been upset when he sold the F-150, but now he preferred the anonymity of a<span style=""> </span>junkyard truck.<span style=""> </span>And anyway, it suited his new career well.<span style=""> </span>It made more sense to drive a beater to meet-ups on back county roads, and the bigger bed made for big deliveries to his runners.<span style=""> </span>Thanks to the Chevy the Yazzie brothers were counting hundred dollar bills as they flew like a murder of crows from Apache County all the way to Coconino.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Bootlegger.<span style=""> </span>Bootlegger, that was it.<span style=""> </span>That was what he’d become.<span style=""> </span>He was a bootlegger who lived alone in a reservation trailer.<span style=""> </span>It was a hell of realization to make, but it was true.<span style=""> </span>Yeah, the Chevy was a fine truck he thought, and there was no point in trying to lie about what had happened to him, to try keeping up appearances.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah walked back up toward the hotel and entered the lobby through the double, oaken doors. He passed behind the front desk and entered a small office.<span style=""> </span>He flicked on the light and then read the note from the bartender:<span style=""> </span><i>We need two kegs of Bud and napkins. The delivery went fine last night.<span style=""> </span>They want you to drive the next one out to them on Tuesday.<span style=""> </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">There were a dozen cases of Mickey’s handgrendaes stacked next to the door topped by a case of Old Crow bourbon.<span style=""> </span>The tower rose well over his head, and there was a deep, rectangular indentation in the carpet next to it where a similar stack had been.<span style=""> </span>The walls were bare except for a calendar and a liquor license, the latter of which he took down from the wall to reveal the safe behind it.<span style=""> </span>Noah entered the sequence on the combination lock, and then pulled the small fold of bills from his pocket.<span style=""> </span>They were crisp, as if never handled, and he unfolded the money and peeled away a handful of twenties. He placed the rest of the bills back in the envelope and put it on top of the packaged from the lawyer and put both in the safe. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah reached in his front pocket and pulled out the ring.<span style=""> </span>He was ready to place it in the safe when he stopped to inspect it further.<span style=""> </span>This time he’d found it in a pawnshop in Monticello.<span style=""> </span>It was between a boning knife and a crossbow, as if that was a perfectly natural place to find a Tiffany’s engagement ring.<span style=""> </span>There was a tag with a handwritten price on it: $300.<span style=""> </span>He swore this would be the last time and then pulled his wallet from his pocket and put $300 on the counter.<span style=""> </span>It was the cheapest price he’d paid for the ring yet.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>In the office, the thought caused a great emptiness to seize him. Was this the third or fourth time he’d bought back the ring?<span style=""> </span>He held it up to the fluorescent lighting in the office and studied the mount and cut of the diamond. His mother helped him pick it out when she was still alive.<span style=""> </span>They drove all the way to Phoenix and visited half the metro area before finding the right one.<span style=""> </span>Noah pulled the ring back from the light and put it in his pocket.<span style=""> </span>He was angry.<span style=""> </span>She wasn’t even going to show up anyway.<span style=""> </span>What was the point of any of it?<span style=""> </span>He knew if he kept it the only thing to do would be to give it back again, and the thought made him feel pathetic. Worse than pathetic, he felt invisible and stung all over like he was naked inside a giant dust devil.<span style=""> </span>All he wanted was to make it disappear.<span style=""> </span>He shut the safe and turned off the lights.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">A signature on some papers and 30 miles of highway.<span style=""> </span>Was that all that could separate one life from another? It didn’t seem right after ten years of marriage.<span style=""> </span>How could that much time just come to nothing? But he felt now that Dawn wasn’t coming.<span style=""> </span>And maybe this meant it was truly over.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah crossed the parking lot and picked his way down a gentle, rocky incline until he was on the flat sandstone near the river.<span style=""> </span>The San Juan flowed by quietly, brown and murky with the color of the earth through which it cut.<span style=""> </span>He took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one.<span style=""> </span>Puffing slowly, he gazed into the southwest where the sun looked like a huge fireball incinerating the stratified buttes in the distance. The high banks of monsoonal clouds were still gathering in the east and he could smell the rain somewhere far off.<span style=""> </span>It reminded him of the day he was married by the river, but when he tried to remember how Dawn looked that day, all he could see was the woman from the Montezuma Motel 6:<span style=""> </span>oozing scabs on her arms and dried, brown blood on her upper lip like some sort of grotesque mustache.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah finished the cigarette and walked alongside the San Juan until he was almost under the bridge that spanned the river and connected Mexican Hat with the highway.<span style=""> </span>A truck went by overhead and made a loud clunking noise about halfway across the bridge as if a child or dog had fallen out of the bed.<span style=""> </span>A second truck followed and made the same noise at the same point, and Noah realized that an expansion joint was merely worn out.<span style=""> </span>He felt drawn, purposeless- lonely to the point he would have preferred something fell from the trucks so he could chase down the owners and talk to them.<span style=""> </span>Only the promise of seeing Lelen and Gabby gave any form to the time ahead.<span style=""> </span>He and Lelen would install the radio he bought.<span style=""> </span>Maybe they’d play basketball.<span style=""> </span>They’d drive to Kayenta and drop Lelen off at Gabby’s mom’s house.<span style=""> </span>And then they’d get good and drunk in Flagstaff and he’d forget about things for a time.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah climbed up a little to where the underside of the bridge met the upper edge of the bank and studied the array of garbage piled there.<span style=""> </span>A dusty spectrum of beer cans interspersed with a few bits of clothing, condom wrappers and the fire eaten corpses of mesquite tree branches.<span style=""> </span>Many of the cans had no doubt come from his bar, the cycle of waste partially his own.<span style=""> </span>He bent down and picked up one of the beer cans.<span style=""> </span>The dirt was stained underneath as if a man had recently emptied the rest of the can or his bladder on that spot.<span style=""> </span>He took the ring from his pocket and placed it inside the can, shaking it gently and listening for the rattle like a can of spray paint as he walked back towards the river.<span style=""> </span>He negotiated the last two terraces of sandstone near the bank and then slowly bent down onto one knee and placed the can in the river.<span style=""> </span>For a few moments he let the cool water wash over the crevices in his knuckles, and then he let go.<span style=""> </span>The can floated off with the current of the water, and he watched until it went around a bend and into the oblivion of the great ribbon waterway.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.2pt; text-indent: 35.8pt; line-height: 200%;">Noah walked back to his truck and decided to drive the length of the city before heading back to the reservation.<span style=""> </span>He still had some faint hope of finding Dawn.<span style=""> </span>After running the town’s main strip, he parked at the Shell station just before the bridge that led out of the city and onto Highway 163.<span style=""> </span>There were no other cars in the parking lot except for a semi-truck idled on the east side of the building.<span style=""> </span>Noah entered the store where the owner sat behind the counter. He was a gelatinous, red-faced man who’d had the same buzz cut ever since Noah could remember.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“How are you, Jim?”<span style=""> </span>Noah said.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Jim was reading the newspaper and didn’t look up. The air in the store pulsed with the heat and the hum of the beer cooler’s compresor.<span style=""> </span>Jim shifted in his seat and flipped to the next page of the paper.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“What happened to your other truck?”<span style=""> </span>he said as he continued looking at the paper. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“I sold it,” Noah said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Jim placed the paper on the counter and stared over Noah’s shoulder at the Chevy.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah…I figured. Some folks said they’d seen you driving around in it. Said they’d seen you <i>lots </i><span style="font-style: normal;">of places in it.”<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“I been doing some fencing out along the county roads.<span style=""> </span>Just helping some new friends.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Uh huh.” Jim snorted.<span style=""> </span>“How you like living in the Valley?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah cracked his neck to hide his annoyance and reached for a cigarette from his pocket. What Jim meant was, <i>how do you like living with Indians? </i><span style="font-style: normal;">“Look,” Noah said, “I was supposed to meet Dawn up at the hotel and she didn’t show.<span style=""> </span>You seen her?”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Jim wiped sweat from his blotchy face and snorted again.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah…a bit ago.<span style=""> </span>She was, uh, you know, acting like Dawn.<span style=""> </span>Speaking a hundred miles an hour and pouring sweat.<span style=""> </span>I could barely stand to look at her.<span style=""> </span>She asked to use the bathroom.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“What did you do?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Well hell, Noah, I gave her the key to get her out of here.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“She didn’t come back?</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Jim raised his hands up to his shoulders and shrugged, and with the gesture Noah could feel his blood spiking.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You didn’t see her again?” Noah pressed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The fat man was irritated now.<span style=""> </span>“What the fuck ya think, Noah?<span style=""> </span>Look around.<span style=""> </span>She ain’t in here.<span style=""> </span>And the day’s too god damn hot to go chasing down addicts for bathroom keys.”<span style=""> </span>Noah turned and walked back out the front door.<span style=""> </span>Jim said something else to him, but the engine of the idling semi drowned it out. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah walked around the building to the women’s restroom and knocked loudly.<span style=""> </span>No answer.<span style=""> </span>He knocked again, but the bathroom door was locked.<span style=""> </span>He imagined what she might be doing in there.<span style=""> </span>A flood of scenes came before his eyes, and he could feel his heart was racing.<span style=""> </span>Noah thought of breaking down the door, but instead he started taking deep breaths.<span style=""> </span>Whatever she was doing in there, she had to come out eventually. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah realized his own bladder was full from a can of Schlitz he had on the drive over from the reservation and so he tried the men’s bathroom.<span style=""> </span>The door was open and he walked over to the urinal farthest from the stall in the corner.<span style=""> </span>After he finished peeing, he shook himself and hustled his balls.<span style=""> </span>He ran his finger along the seam that split them in two and a strange thought came to him.<span style=""> </span>It was like he was sewn together from two different people. Like there was the side of him that felt bad about what he did with the ring, the side that wanted the papers to remain unsigned, and then this other side.<span style=""> </span>The dark part of him that wished Dawn had a different kind of sickness.<span style=""> </span>That wished she had cancer or something.<span style=""> </span>He felt as though he’d lost her to a mental illness, and that this was more cruel than some other kind of disease. <span style=""> </span>His wife was simply not the same person anymore and he didn’t know how to deal with the schizophrenic thing that had taken her place. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah walked to the sink and rinsed his hands.<span style=""> </span>He pulled a couple paper towels from the dispenser and read the graffiti that covered it.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=""> </span><span style=";font-family:";" ><i>CARY BENALLY’S SNATCH IS WIDER</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=";font-family:";" ><i><span style=""> </span>AND DEEPER THAN THE GRAND CANYON</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><i> </i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">And below:</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=";font-family:";" >A MAN COULD GET LOST IN A THING LIKE THAT</span><span style=";font-family:";" ></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah laughed and relaxed for the first time since he’d gotten to Mexican Hat. So it was still possible to smile on a day like today. He finished wiping his hands and turned to leave the bathroom when he heard someone snort loudly and at length.<span style=""> </span>He heard another similar snort and then a slight groan came from the stall.<span style=""> </span>Noah turned around and listened.<span style=""> </span>Another louder groan followed. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Hey, fella.<span style=""> </span>You okay in there?” Noah said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">There was no response at first, but then he heard another deep, syrupy moan. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah knocked at the door.<span style=""> </span>“Hey, man.<span style=""> </span>Whatever the hell you’re doing in there, do it somewhere else.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">The stall was silent and then a loud and baritone voice said “FUCK OFF.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Normally Noah would have left the situation alone, but then he heard a woman’s voice.<span style=""> </span>Faint, but unmistakable.<span style=""> </span>His legs started shaking with anger as he walked to the urinal beside the stall.<span style=""> </span>He climbed on top of it and looked down: a beefy, bearded man in flannel stood with his pants around his ankles.<span style=""> </span>He was bent over and snorting a white line off the top of the metallic toilet paper holder.<span style=""> </span>A woman knelt at his crouch, and her black hair fell over her face as she worked over his thick, gnarled dick. The man’s pubic bristled like a black patch of steel wool and intertwined with the woman’s greasy mange. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah stepped down from the urinal and jogged out of the bathroom and back to his truck with his heart pounding in his ears.<span style=""> </span>He took the hammer off the seat of the Chevy and started back to the bathroom without any kind of plan.<span style=""> </span>Was it even her?<span style=""> </span>Had they noticed him? The thoughts rang in his head as his boots beat on the gravel parking lot. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He reached the bathroom and knocked on the stall door with the hammer.<span style=""> </span>When no one responded he got angrier and knocked harder and harder, and then he was kicking it too with the pointed toe of his boots. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Get the fuck out of the stall!”<span style=""> </span>Noah heard himself yelling as if he were now outside of his own body. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Finally, the door opened. The bearded man was laughing.<span style=""> </span>He had his pants up and the woman was looking away. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Relax there, cowboy,” he said.<span style=""> </span>“Me and the lady were just having a little break here.”<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah raised the hammer and the man took pause.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">He looked at Noah and the woman. “Look buddy I can see this is between you and her.<span style=""> </span>Here, you can have her back.” He shoved the dark haired woman at Noah, and as she came rushing into him he could finally see her face, could see if was his wife.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah tried to put her in a sort of bear hug, and the man skirted them both and left the bathroom.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Let go of me,” she yelled, and slipped out of his grasp, so he only held her by one arm.<span style=""> </span>He tried to grab the other arm, but she lunged at him and scratched Noah across his right brow with one of her lengthy fingernails.<span style=""> </span>Finally, he managed to lock her arms behind her and dragged her just outside the bathroom. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Before he could say anything to Dawn, Jim came lumbering around the corner.<span style=""> </span>He was gasping.<span style=""> </span>The man from the bathroom had stepped up in to the semi and the diesel engine roared it headed back out on to the highway.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Jim stared at them for a few moments and collected his breath.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You both got five minutes to leave. Then I call the cops.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah was silent.<span style=""> </span>There was nothing to say. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">Noah walked her back to his truck, and shoved her against the passenger’s side door.<span style=""> </span>Her arms were boney, scabbed over and sweaty.<span style=""> </span>The skin over her cheek bones he looked uncomfortably taut and pale. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“I’m taking to your mother’s,” he said. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“Like hell you are.<span style=""> </span>I’m headed to see my sister in Phoenix.”<span style=""> </span>Her sister was into it too and he was pretty sure that’s how Dawn had started. </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 200%;">“You were supposed to be meeting me. Look, you got two options.<span style=""> </span>I take you back up to your mother’s in Blanding, or you stay here and talk to the cops.<span style=""> </span>No fucking way I’m taking you to your sister’s.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>She said nothing for a while and then got in the truck.<span style=""> </span>He started the Chevy and stared over at her.<span style=""> </span>She was breathing heavily and pouring sweat.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>“You need anything?” he asked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>She stared straight ahead at the crack in the windshield.<span style=""> </span>“I need the forty bucks that guy owed me.” </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>He felt himself go numb and just stared at her for a time.<span style=""> </span>Stared at this person he’d once known and loved and been loved by.<span style=""> </span>He pulled a $100 from his wallet and gave it to her.<span style=""> </span>“Here,” he said, “You can take a taxi to Phoenix for all I care.<span style=""> </span>Now get out.”<span style=""> </span>She took the money and opened the door without protest.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style=""> </span>Noah got back on the highway and drove towards his trailer.<span style=""> </span>He started to cry.<span style=""> </span>He hadn’t cried in years.<span style=""> </span>He hadn’t cried through it all.<span style=""> </span>But now he cried loudly.<span style=""> </span>He cried for himself and for Dawn and for everything he’d done or failed to do for her.<span style=""> </span>He’d thought it for a while, but now he knew there was a woman out there who was no longer his wife and that he had no family.<span style=""> </span>He’d go back to the trailers and the concrete court and the long afternoon shadows. He’d play ball with Lelen. He’d install the radio.<span style=""> </span>He’d go to Flagstaff with Gabby and get drunk.<span style=""> </span>A few simple things.<span style=""> </span>That was all he all he could do.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99EjG38PEOY8aue0MK7lRQmEYAvXc_lRCquL62z8BCmdKIWd5BNSQw7fGjB-xvzQ11ghsFJp6DYJxW_A_qHQaYLRA4K1rGrrKwCMHTIPowYdJe9-DG9ADIlwgi8x4EecUHRoy__1yl1uj/s1600/IMG_2173.JPG"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh99EjG38PEOY8aue0MK7lRQmEYAvXc_lRCquL62z8BCmdKIWd5BNSQw7fGjB-xvzQ11ghsFJp6DYJxW_A_qHQaYLRA4K1rGrrKwCMHTIPowYdJe9-DG9ADIlwgi8x4EecUHRoy__1yl1uj/s320/IMG_2173.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5580404697852510466" border="0" /></a></p>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-20980158401846106652011-02-28T13:49:00.000-08:002011-02-28T13:51:39.422-08:00my reaction to this season as told through emoticonsIt's been a rollercoaster of a season for KSU bball:<br /><br /><br />When we first started sucking I was all like <img src="http://goemaw.com/forum/Smileys/goEMAW/Dunno-ck.gif" alt="curtis kelly" border="0" height="22" width="45" /> but then as it got worse I was like <img src="http://goemaw.com/forum/Smileys/goEMAW/Bang%20Head.gif" alt="Bang Head" border="0" /> and then after the first KU game I was finally like <img src="http://goemaw.com/forum/Smileys/goEMAW/suicide.gif" alt="suicide" border="0" />and now I'm totally like <img src="http://goemaw.com/forum/Smileys/goEMAW/Smiley%20with%20KSU%20sign.gif" alt="KSU Smiley" border="0" />Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-52182550679688329282009-11-09T06:27:00.000-08:002009-11-09T06:28:41.210-08:00Ever Since Nebraksa (the story)<span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span>Summer, 1990.</i></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i>Lelen,<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span>I thought you were coming back right after graduation. Your aunt and I are getting worried about you. I got a spot waiting running a combine if you’re back by harvest.<span style=""> </span>The Hendersons said they could use an extra hand with their cattle if you want something more permanent.<span style=""> </span>You been gone a long time, son.<span style=""> </span>Come on back to Pine Ridge.<span style=""> </span>Lincoln won’t miss you half as much as we do.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>With Love,<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Jimmy<span style=""> </span></i></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen’s uncle didn’t have a phone like a lot of people on the reservation, and he<span style=""> </span>had spent over a week trying to write a reply.<span style=""> </span>It was difficult to find the right way to explain things to Jimmy, but he decided that when he got home after work he would go over it again and mail it out the next day.<span style=""> </span>He hoped Jimmy would understand everything he had to say, but if he didn’t mail it soon he’d beat the letter back to Pine Ridge and it would all be pointless. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen stood up and left the letter on his bed.<span style=""> </span>His long, black hair was still wet from a shower, and he pulled it back into a ponytail.<span style=""> </span>He combed through the last few items of clothing in the dresser and pulled an undershirt onto his thick upper body. He looked in the mirror and studied the lack of definition in his chest, the softening of his jaw line. He'd gained weight in that sort of white slovenly way, and he hated the way it looked.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Had it really been five years since leaving Pine Ridge?<span style=""> </span>He remembered being so excited the day he left that he drove the three hundred miles between Pine Ridge and Lincoln in just over four hours.<span style=""> </span>It was one of the hottest days of that summer. The cab of the U-Haul didn’t have air conditioning, but it hadn’t bothered him a bit. He simply rolled down the windows and floored the truck along I-80 until it shook and felt like it would fly apart. When he finally got to his new apartment in Lincoln, he took off his undershirt and carried the contents of the truck bare chested.<span style=""> </span>After he had finished with everything, he stood looking out his doorway watching a pretty white girl walk up to her apartment a few doors away, her hands full of groceries.<span style=""> </span>She refused to set down the bags and struggled to unlock her front door.<span style=""> </span>Lelen walked up behind her to ask if he could help, and she turned around very surprised to see a shirtless and sweaty Lakota man staring back at her.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>She was Suzy from Omaha, and it was obvious the way she looked over his body that she was not afraid of him. He introduced himself, and she asked him if he’d like to come in for a beer.<span style=""> </span>When he went to grab his undershirt, she told him not to put it back on for her account, and he felt his face flush. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>He was impressed by her forwardness and her immediate comfort with him.<span style=""> </span>And he found her blond hair and tan skin arousing.<span style=""> </span>He hadn’t known too many Lakota girls who acted like this, and he sure didn’t know any who looked like this.<span style=""> </span>The only time he'd seen a girl like Suzy was in a </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i>Playboy</i></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>In the setting red sun of the summer afternoon they drank and talked.<span style=""> </span>Suzy's father was a car salesman and her mother a nurse.<span style=""> </span>She was close to graduating and thinking about taking her long, tan legs into nursing school. Lelen liked that she was sweet and uncomplicated and not at all turned off by the fact that he was Indian and poor.<span style=""> </span>After a few beers, she leaned over and kissed him, and he was so surprised he barely kissed back.<span style=""> </span>He left her apartment a few minutes later shocked by the fact that a white college girl had actually kissed him.<span style=""> </span>If he had a little more experience he probably could have gone further with her, but even so, he spent the rest of the night thinking that if all the girls off the reservation were this horny and nice, he would never want to leave Lincoln.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Even then, Lelen felt guilty.<span style=""> </span>Wanting to have sex with a white girl was something Jimmy would never understand or tolerate.<span style=""> </span>His uncle was a storyteller in the old Indian mold and friends with the medicine men of the tribe.<span style=""> </span>When he had some big problem, his uncle would still use traditional healing ceremonies to cure himself.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Lelen respected this about Jimmy, but he also felt it made his uncle a somewhat limited man.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy treated every embrace of the white world like it was a betrayal of their own people, and now, five years later looking in this mirror Lelen realized how much different he looked from when he first left the reservation for college.<span style=""> </span>He was so lean and muscular then from working farm jobs all the time.<span style=""> </span>No wonder Suzy had found him attractive. He didn’t look old or out of shape now, but all the time he’d spent on school and working to pay off his debts had left him looking like the sort of urban Indian he knew Jimmy hated.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Lelen sighed and looked down at his watch realizing he would be late for his last day of work. Quickly, he went through his clothes and picked out an old, gray t-shirt, a gas station souvenir that Jimmy bought for him.<span style=""> </span>On the front it featured the faces of Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, and Red Cloud as they floated like ghosts over Mount Rushmore.<span style=""> </span>He put it on trying to convince himself that wearing it on his last day in Lincoln would be an appropriate tribute to his uncle.<span style=""> </span>But when he stepped out the apartment door and sat down in his car, he realized the shirt made him feel nothing.<span style=""> </span>Not pride, not hope, not even comfort.<span style=""> </span>All he could feel was a consuming sense of confusion, and he knew that just like every night of the past week he would spend this one wondering why he was going home.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes when he pictured Pine Ridge is his mind, skeletons of old Fords and empty cans of Colt 45 were all he could see. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison squatted down in a corner of the kitchen studying a hole in the wall. There were a few cockroaches scurrying in and out.<span style=""> </span>He stood up and tried to crush one with his foot, but when he lifted up his shoe it managed to scramble back into the hole.<span style=""> </span>His face was amusingly distraught, and his curly red hair fell over his scrunched up forehead.<span style=""> </span>“God damn they’re resilient.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen stopped peeling the skins of the onions and walked over next to Madison.<span style=""> </span>He patted him on the shoulder and laughed.<span style=""> </span>“It’s all right, man. They’re stronger than us. And anyways, they’re everywhere.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison looked alertly at him.<span style=""> </span>“Everywhere? Naw, don’t tell me these things, man.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Yeah, ‘fraid so.<span style=""> </span>Last week I’m saucing a pizza, and I see a big clump in the sauce.<span style=""> </span>I thought it was just some unmixed oregano, so I take the spatula to it and try to break it up, and gradually unearth this inch long cockroach.<span style=""> </span>It’s dead, naturally, suffocated by the sauce.<span style=""> </span>Almost popped it right into the oven.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison thought about it for a while putting his finger to his lips and staring off into space. “Not a bad way to go, I suppose.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>They laughed, and then Madison said seriously,<span style=""> </span>“You know we’re really going to miss you, man.<span style=""> </span>I’m really going to miss you. You’ve worked here a long time.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>It was true. They had been friends pretty much since Madison started working at Dave's three years ago, and part of Lelen was very sad to be leaving such a good friend. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“What’s Pine Ridge got anyway that Lincoln doesn’t have?” Madison asked as he moved away from the cockroach infested corner and started scrubbing the metallic counters with a rag. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“My uncle’s farm for one thing,” Lelen said. “Well, actually he doesn’t own it. but he’s worked there a long time and he’s on good terms with the owner.<span style=""> </span>He said he can get me a couple different jobs when I go back.”<span style=""> </span>Madison gave him sort of a funny look, and Lelen wondered if his explanation sounded as unconvincing as it felt.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Yeah, but I bet you guys don’t have hot, blond co-eds walking all over the prairie, do you? I hope you remember when you’re sitting there in your shit-stained overalls, milking cows or whatever, that you could be here with me enjoying the beautiful breasts and long, tan legs of corn-fed girls.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen laughed.<span style=""> </span>“We grow wheat out there and rustle cattle, asshole. Won’t be milking a fucking thing.<span style=""> </span>Or don’t you know the difference? I guess it’s all the same to you people.<span style=""> </span>You don’t have a clue what it’s like to be out there on the prairie doing actual work.<span style=""> </span>You don’t have the ability to imagine the dust and the wind and the dirt of the day opening up to a night sky of a million stars. There are a lot of things out there you guys will never understand.<span style=""> </span>Just things you can’t feel when you’re surrounded by college girls and McDonald’s.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison tried to look mock offended, and he paused while searching for a proper response.<span style=""> </span>“You know you’re absolutely right.<span style=""> </span>What I really need is a guide to take me on a great spiritual quest.<span style=""> </span>To fast until I have visions and find myself out there in the fields howling like a coyote and talking to my dead pet goldfish.<span style=""> </span>Maybe you can be my guide. Busy this weekend?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Lelen laughed.<span style=""> </span>He knew Madision was joking, and they had both agreed long ago that sometimes the only worse fate for an Indian than being hated by white people was being admired by them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison continued on scrubbing old pizza sauce off the counter tops. “You think if you were my spirit guide you could assign me a spirit animal?”<span style=""> </span>His voice became excited and he spoke quickly. “Maybe like a cockroach. Could a cockroach be a spirit animal? I mean nothing kills them and it seems like they must be everywhere. You guys got them on the reservation? Somehow I can’t imagine cockroaches in nature.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen had finished cutting the onions and stared at his friend.<span style=""> </span>“Yeah, of course we got them. You guys gave them to us back in the Red Moon Treaty of 1864.<span style=""> </span>You told us they were magic bugs that would cure sickness, and we were so stupid back then we believed you and traded them for about three million acres of land.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison pointed at Lelen’s shirt. “Is that how we got the land to build Rushmore?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen had forgotten he was wearing the shirt for a second, and he paused.<span style=""> </span>“Well...yeah.<span style=""> </span>You guys traded us magic bugs for sacred rocks and then dynamited the faces of your presidents into them.<span style=""> </span>Still haven’t gotten over that one.”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>They were both laughing. Sometimes it really did seem like the only thing most people knew about Natives they learned from watching John Wayne movies.<span style=""> </span>A year ago Lelen had<span style=""> </span>met a drunk girl in a bar who put it in perspective when she refused to believe he was Native.<span style=""> </span>She explained to him, “You can’t be Indian because Indians are all gone.”<span style=""> </span>He spent the rest of the night getting drunk and trying to convince the girl to have sex with the “only Native American left alive.” Part of him could understand why she’d said what she said, and part of him just wanted to blot out her ignorant white face. But in the end, he went home alone, neither her perfect breasts nor his horniness could overcome such frightening stupidity. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>The memory depressed Lelen, and he turned away from Madison.<span style=""> </span>“I’m gonna go grab a beer and take a break before we start closing everything down.<span style=""> </span>I’ll be outside if you need me.”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen leaned against a car in the parking lot and studied the cracked facade of the building.<span style=""> </span>The streetlights and the half-obscured moon dimly illuminated the restaurant’s sign: DAVE’S PIZZERIA.<span style=""> </span>It made him feel old to look at the weather beaten letters.<span style=""> </span>When he’d started working here, they had been crisp and freshly painted. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>There was a light rain falling, and Lelen lifted his face upwards to let it cool his flushed cheeks. Nights like these reminded him of the reservation.<span style=""> </span>By this time next week he would be back in Pine Ridge, and although he wanted to see his aunt and uncle, he also felt a bitter depression. At times, going home felt like nothing more than a senseless obligation, a retreat into a past that no longer seemed usable. It was true that at some point in his childhood there had been something out there in the fields, in working with the cattle, in sitting out under the sheets of fireflies and thunder, but somewhere between Pine Ridge and Lincoln he had changed, and he was no longer his uncle’s kind of Indian. He realized his old identity had been cultivated by Jimmy, by a close-mindedness so steadfast that it could let nothing in from the outside.<span style=""> </span>Only since he’d left Lincoln had Lelen pieced together something for himself, a new perspective where an Indian could sleep with white girls and a get a college degree without feeling like he was betraying anyone. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen sipped from a Styrofoam cup he was holding and licked his lips.<span style=""> </span>The beer inside was cool and bitter. It was starting to warm the inside of his stomach and make his head feel heavy.<span style=""> </span>He took a bigger gulp and spilled a few drops. They dribbled down his chin and mixed with the sweat and grime on his t-shirt. He wished he hadn’t been in such a rush when he left home.<span style=""> </span>Even though the faces of the Indian chiefs were printed on a cheap souvenir, even if he didn’t know what to feel about Jimmy anymore, he wasn't ready to spit in the face of tradition.<span style=""> </span>As bitter as he felt at that moment towards his home, he would not douse his forefathers in Budweiser. In one swift movement, Lelen pulled his shirt off over his shoulders and felt the air hit his sweat covered chest. To Hell with it.<span style=""> </span>He would work in his undershirt. He felt so angry all of a sudden and it only got worse when he realized he had nothing and no one to direct this feeling towards.<span style=""> </span>He looked at the faces on the shirt and thought about saying sorry to them, but he really didn’t know what good that would do.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen sighed and pushed open the side door of the restaurant.<span style=""> </span>It squeaked and then slammed loudly behind him.<span style=""> </span>Inside, the waitresses were busy bussing tables and cleaning glasses.<span style=""> </span>He walked silently over to the beer taps and poured himself another drink.<span style=""> </span>Lelen hoped no one would see him do it, but then he realized it probably didn’t matter since it was his last day.<span style=""> </span>He looked down at his feet and saw one of the drains under the bar had backed up and was flooding water onto the floor.<span style=""> </span>He turned away from the taps and walked swiftly through the murky puddle.<span style=""> </span>Things like this happened all the time at Dave’s, but the smell that followed was something he could never get used to.<span style=""> </span>It was like a mixture of sour milk and decomposing rodents, and it reminded him of the outhouse he had to use as a kid.<span style=""> </span>Lelen smiled when he thought about how proud his Mom was the day they finally got indoor plumbing.<span style=""> </span>She used to tell him to take extra good care to wipe himself while he was in the outhouse because out under the sky and the stars God was watching him.<span style=""> </span>As a child, he imagined having to watch people take shits in outhouses must have been at least one of the many negative aspects of being God.<span style=""> </span>And he wondered why anyone would ever be so interested in a poor boy’s hygiene.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Back into the kitchen, Lelen started cleaning the make line in silence.<span style=""> </span>Madison had disappeared.<span style=""> </span>Lelen looked around at all the stains on the walls and holes in the floorboards, the black sludge under the make line and the old cheese smeared on the metallic tables, and he felt oddly sad.<span style=""> </span>It was disgusting, but he had memories attached to the place.<span style=""> </span>Working in a kitchen reminded him in a lot of ways of the hard work he had to do on the farm, the heat, the tiring manual labor.<span style=""> </span>Plus, all the money he had made working had helped put him through college. In some ways, he had come to relish the atmosphere of dirtiness. He closed his eyes, and took in the various ambient smells of the kitchen.<span style=""> </span>He took a sip of beer and kept his eyes closed.<span style=""> </span>Maybe this smell would remind him of Lincoln when he was back in Pine Ridge.<span style=""> </span>Lelen opened his eyes and sighed.<span style=""> </span>He pulled a couple of dirty metal containers from the make line and walked back towards the dish room.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>The new dishwasher was bent over the sink in the tiny, filthy room.<span style=""> </span>He was slowly scrubbing plates with a cloth and muttering to himself.<span style=""> </span>Rainwater from the storm was dripping steadily through a large leak in the ceiling and landing on the back of his neck.<span style=""> </span>The neckline of his shirt was soaked through, but he didn’t seem to notice. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen tapped him on the shoulder. “Can you wash these and bring them back up front for me.” The disher didn’t respond.<span style=""> </span>He was knew and Lelen wasn’t entirely sure of his name.. “Uh…Carlos? can you wash these for me?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Startled, the disher finally turned around and smiled idiotically. “Hehehe, no problem, boss.<span style=""> </span>Yeah.<span style=""> </span>I wash it.”<span style=""> </span>He continued laughing awkwardly and looking at the space back beyond Lelen’s head. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen set down the containers and walked through the back door of the dish room that led onto the patio. He stared out into the darkness and thought about Carlos. He’d seen this sort of thing before.<span style=""> </span>Old vets or junkies occasionally stumbled by looking for work, and the owner of the place treated them like charity cases.<span style=""> </span>As long as they could sign their names, they could have a job.<span style=""> </span>He felt bad for these guys.<span style=""> </span>He wondered if his Dad had ever come back from the war, if he might have ended up like one of them. <span style=""> </span>He knew a kitchen wasn’t a good place for these guys, but oftentimes it was the only job left for them. Lelen scanned the tables on the patio looking for Madison. They’d closed the porch to customers and turned off the lights because of the rain, but in the back he could see the red glow of a cigarette, and he walked towards it. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Hope you don’t mind me taking a break, too,” Madison said. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen couldn’t see his face very well, and it felt like an invisible person smoking a cigarette was talking to him. <span style=""> </span>“Naw, it’s fine.<span style=""> </span>I’m just about done closing the front.<span style=""> </span>The only other thing I’ve gotta do now is finish the books.<span style=""> </span>You want to stick around and have a beer after we’re done? “<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Sure.<span style=""> </span>I’m always down for free drinks on the Dave’s tab.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>Lelen turned to go back into the kitchen, and then realized he’d come outside to ask Madison something else. “Hey, where’d Dave find this Carlos guy?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>He heard Madison puff on his cigarette and breathe out. “Oh, you mean Robotrip?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Who?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“I guess you haven’t had too many shifts with him, huh?<span style=""> </span>The other guys started calling him Robotrip because he told some of them he drinks Robitussin to get high.<span style=""> </span>I heard he’s pretty much fried himself on acid too, but I don’t know what I believe.<span style=""> </span>Seems like the street vets and bums always have some crazy problem, but there’s no way to know what they’ve done to themselves since they can’t even remember.”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen stared into the darkness.<span style=""> </span>There were a lot of people on the reservation like this.<span style=""> </span>Some of them had pretty good reasons to do what they did, but he was always struck by how many people just ended up gone because they didn’t have the will to do anything else.<span style=""> </span>Still, Lelen was always interested by these people, by their personal histories.<span style=""> </span>Especially when they men of his father’s generation, men who instead of disappearing in Vietnam like his own Dad, had come back to their homes and were now slowly disintegrating. He wanted to know more about Carlos. “Is he a vet, do you think?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison was silent for a few moments before answering. “I’m not sure. I think he’s actually Honduran.”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen and Madison stood by the cash register behind the bar talking.<span style=""> </span>They each had a Styrofoam cup full of beer. All the customers had been gone for a while, and the last waitress had just left.<span style=""> </span>Lelen was finishing the books and Madison was done cleaning when Carlos wandered out from the kitchen.<span style=""> </span>His dark skin was beaded with sweat and water.<span style=""> </span>He took off a wet ball cap he was wearing and slicked back his thin black hair. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Carlos picked up the clipboard with all the employee time cards and flipped to the one with his name.<span style=""> </span>He held it out to Lelen, and stared at him. His eyes looked tired, but they also seemed clearer since Lelen had last talked to him. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>“Sign me out, boss?” Carlos asked. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen took the clipboard and signed.<span style=""> </span>Carlos had ridden his bicycle to work, and he turned to go get it from the patio.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Carlos,” Lelen called.<span style=""> </span>He was surprised by the loudness of his own voice.<span style=""> </span>“Were you ever in Vietnam?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>He stopped and turned around.<span style=""> </span>“Huh...Vietnam.<span style=""> </span>No.<span style=""> </span>Why?<span style=""> </span>Were you?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen laughed out loud when he heard this.<span style=""> </span>It would have been obvious to most people that he was far too young to have been in the war.<span style=""> </span>“No, man.<span style=""> </span>I’m only twenty-three.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Carlos stared at him wide-eyed.<span style=""> </span>“Oh.”<span style=""> </span>He paused again as if each statement he made took some great summoning of all his mental faculties.<span style=""> </span>“Why do you ask me?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“I don’t know. I guess I just want to know where you come from and how you ended up here.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Where I come from?<span style=""> </span>Oh.<span style=""> </span>I come from a plantation.<span style=""> </span>My father’s dead now, but when he was alive he owned a giant plantation.<span style=""> </span>We lived in Honduras.”<span style=""> </span>He stopped, looking tired from the effort of talking. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Were you rich?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Um...rich?<span style=""> </span>Yes.<span style=""> </span>We lived in a mansion.<span style=""> </span>We had lots of servants.<span style=""> </span>We owned a lot.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Carlos turned and walked out to the patio where he grabbed his bike and wheeled it out the side door of the restaurant.<span style=""> </span>He didn’t say good night.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Why did you ask him that?”<span style=""> </span>Madison asked after Carlos had left.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen sipped from his beer and walked over to one of the empty tables in the dining room. “I don’t know.<span style=""> </span>I guess I was just thinking of a story Jimmy told me once.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison followed and sat down. “He knew someone like Carlos?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“On the rez, everyone knows someone like him. Do you know where White Clay, Nebraska is?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison thought about it for a second.<span style=""> </span>“Can’t say that I do?”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen took a drink from his cup and smiled at his friend. It occurred to him that Madison hadn’t asked him why he took off his Rushmore t-shirt.<span style=""> </span>Maybe he just sensed he shouldn’t say anything about it.<span style=""> </span>Maybe he just didn’t care.<span style=""> </span>“Well, White Clay has about twenty residents.<span style=""> </span>When you go through it you’ll miss it because the sign is all gnarled and twisted from where drunk Indians have plowed their cars into it. You see, because even though it’s got only twenty residents it’s got four stores that sell liquor.<span style=""> </span>About fifteen thousand cans a day of beer, around four million a year.<span style=""> </span>And almost all of what they sell is bought by Lakota fresh from picking up their welfare checks.<span style=""> </span>Hell, they even got a place in White Clay where the old Indian vets can cash their checks from the V.A. and buy their booze all in the same place.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison looked surprised by this. “Even for us white people that’s pretty fucked up.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen wasn’t sure he agreed. “Yeah, that’s true in a way.<span style=""> </span>But, you know nobody </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i>makes</i></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"> us buy all the booze.<span style=""> </span>I mean there are all kinds of things we could do besides buy beer.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison went quiet for a moment, and Lelen decided not to argue.<span style=""> </span>“Anyways, so when my Dad and uncle were boys they went to a two room school house.<span style=""> </span>They were a grade apart, but they used to lump multiple grades together back then because they didn’t have enough funding to pay for more teachers or classrooms.<span style=""> </span>My Uncle Jimmy told me that he and my Dad used to have to walk to school from their little shack along the main road, and everyday they would pass by one of the two gas stations in Pine Ridge. The guy who ran the place was half-Lakota and half-white, and he’d left town and gotten some business degree, and when he came back he managed to save and borrow his way into buying the gas station.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen paused for a second and drank.<span style=""> </span>He was starting to feel a little drunk from the beer. He sipped again from his beer and went on. “So the parents of the guy who bought the gas station were dead, and he lived with his grandfather who was a real old drunk son of a bitch. The people in town said the old man had been a boy when Wounded Knee happened, and he could remember the look in General Forsyth’s eyes when he shot this little girl in the face.<span style=""> </span>My uncle didn’t exactly know if this was true because the old man was pretty much crazy and blind from drinking. “<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>“The old man’s grandson, the owner of the gas station, was something of an asshole.<span style=""> </span>People said he resented his Indian side, and he resented having to come back to the reservation to take care of his grandfather.<span style=""> </span>They said he couldn’t stand coming back just to buy a gas station after he spent all this time at college getting a business degree.<span style=""> </span>And the grandson was angry at the old man for being the way he was.<span style=""> </span>He was scared the old man would hurt himself or get lost if he left him at home, but he also hated having this blind, crazy drunk with him all day.<span style=""> </span>He gave him a chair on the porch of the gas station, and when he’d close it down each night, he’d drive the old man over to White Clay and buy him some beer.<span style=""> </span>It was like a treat if he was well-behaved and stayed quiet during the work day, and so the people in Pine Ridge eventually took to calling the old man Sparky, since it seemed like his grandson treated him like a dog.”<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Well, sometimes Sparky would get a little tired of waiting for the booze and he’d want to take matters into his own hands. Sometimes he’d wander off the gas station porch and walk up to the pumps and he’d huff a little gasoline.<span style=""> </span>More than a few times my father and uncle would be walking home from school along the road, and they’d find Sparky wandering in it.<span style=""> </span>They’d usually take him by the hand or call his grandson and take him back over to the gas station. People thought the grandson ignored it when his grandfather huffed from the pumps because he liked it when the old man got too gone and passed out and left him alone.<span style=""> </span>Most people in the town were pretty good about watching out for Sparky when they traveled the road, and they knew that if it was late in the afternoon they were liable to see the old man wander out in front of them.<span style=""> </span>But, one day there was this white guy from out of town hauling some new farm equipment through Pine Ridge up north to one of the farms outside of town.<span style=""> </span>Well, I guess Sparky had huffed a little too much that day, and the white guy didn’t see him and that was pretty much the end of Sparky.<span style=""> </span>My uncle said that he and my Dad were walking home when they came upon a crowd of people surrounding the old man in the middle of the road. My uncle said Sparky’s eyes were open and staring out at them, but his belly was opened up and all manner of him had spilled out on the road. He was dead in a pool of himself.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison stared wide-eyed at Lelen. His face was horrified looking, but he remained silent. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“So, that night at dinner my grandmother asked my uncle and Dad what happened, and they told her that Sparky had died.<span style=""> </span>She said how terrible it was that Sparky got ran over, and how awful his grandson was for letting it happen.<span style=""> </span>And I guess my father just stared at my grandmother like he didn’t understand what she was talking about.<span style=""> </span>My uncle told me that after a long pause my father finally said to my grandmother, ‘Sparky didn’t get run over, Mom.<span style=""> </span>He got split open by his home.’<span style=""> </span>My uncle said my grandmother was so angry she spanked my Dad until he had great purple welts on his butt.<span style=""> </span>After that, Jimmy said he and my father didn’t talk about it again until they were nearly grown up.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>They were both silent for a long time before Madison spoke. “You took your Rushmore shirt off.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Yeah. I spilled beer on Sitting Bull.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“You wanted to keep him clean?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“I guess so. <span style=""> </span>Mostly I just didn’t want to shit all over him while he watched me.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Madison stood up from the table like he was ready to leave. “So, you think the old man, the grandfather, did it to himself?” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen rested his arms on the table and sighed. “I don’t know.<span style=""> </span>It seems like my Dad thought so. What Carlos said just made me think of it.<span style=""> </span>I mean all I know is there’s<span style=""> </span>just a lot of things acting on you, and how you react is what matters most.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Is that why you’re not going to stay in Pine Ridge? Because you’re afraid of how you’ll react?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Sort of.<span style=""> </span>I mean mostly I’m not staying because I already know what’s out there, and that it won’t make me happy.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen stood up and walked with Madison to the front door of the restaurant.<span style=""> </span>Outside on the sidewalk they hugged, and Lelen felt sadder than he had at any point during the night. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“I’ll miss you.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.5in; text-indent: -1.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Me too.” <span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“I’ll write you once I get settled there.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Do you think you could ask around the reservation when you get back and see what people think of the idea of a cockroach as a spirit animal?<span style=""> </span>I’m telling you I think there’s something there.” <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Lelen smiled. “I won’t, but I’ll write you soon.<span style=""> </span>Bye.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>“Bye, Lelen.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">***<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: -0.5in; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><span style=""> </span>Back in his apartment Lelen stepped out of the shower and dried off.<span style=""> </span>He walked into his living room and sat down to finish the reply to his uncle.<span style=""> </span>When it was done, he read it back to himself. </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span>Jimmy,<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span>I’m quitting my job and coming back to Pine Ridge.<span style=""> </span>Today (Sunday) was my last day, and the lease on my apartment will be up at the end of the week.<span style=""> </span>I reserved a U-Haul for Friday morning, so I should be home by late afternoon.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span>I want you to know that I love you guys and appreciate everything you’ve done for me since Mom died.<span style=""> </span>In a lot of ways, you guys are my parents.<span style=""> </span>I feel like I owe you something, but part of the reason I’m writing you is to let you know that I don’t plan to stay on the reservation past the end of the year.<span style=""> </span>I know.<span style=""> </span>I promised.<span style=""> </span>But there are a lot of things I still want to do.<span style=""> </span>Not just in Lincoln and not just in Pine Ridge.<span style=""> </span>I want to make some money on the reservation, so I can apply to grad school and hopefully get in by the spring.<span style=""> </span>I’m thinking of going to school at KU, so I can get into that writing program they’ve got down there in Lawrence.<span style=""> </span>I want to earn my master’s and teach.<span style=""> </span>I want to travel. <span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><span style=""> </span>Don’t get me wrong.<span style=""> </span>I love home.<span style=""> </span>I can’t replace it with anything else.<span style=""> </span>I know you might think I’m trying to, and maybe after reading this letter you’ll think me derelict.<span style=""> </span>But I’m not.<span style=""> </span>I know exactly where my home is, and I know it’s possible to make a life out of the reservation if you have the will to.<span style=""> </span>But I don’t think I do, and I don’t really want to spend the time finding out.<span style=""> </span>I hope this letter finds you and auntie well and that there’s still a job waiting for me when I get back. <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i>Love, <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT;"><i>Lelen</i></span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; line-height: 200%;" align="center"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-54138770575859464842009-11-01T03:39:00.000-08:002009-11-02T13:01:11.494-08:00De Facto and Spanish BombsRe-done De Facto and hasty cover of Spanish Bombs<br /><br /><a href="http://www.myspace.com/eversincenebraska">http://www.myspace.com/eversincenebraska</a>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-88647710205830277082009-10-24T18:15:00.001-07:002009-10-24T18:20:46.267-07:00Ever Since Nebraska<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZvJtZF0ymz5pkokehqcFoRbBAiFhxV20FNqckQ8ZsoUflhOD72q1cGOBAQ4X2UNvWhir1lgzJAXkps4unFFmq0ji-X_XCho_SObFy4wbyuH71pTRaRokZKem_QHNQkDh4Zm-XmCM9gA7v/s1600-h/IMG_0141.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZvJtZF0ymz5pkokehqcFoRbBAiFhxV20FNqckQ8ZsoUflhOD72q1cGOBAQ4X2UNvWhir1lgzJAXkps4unFFmq0ji-X_XCho_SObFy4wbyuH71pTRaRokZKem_QHNQkDh4Zm-XmCM9gA7v/s320/IMG_0141.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396341332817855794" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I decided to create a myspace to host whatever recordings I come up with here in Seattle. Because I just moved to Capitol Hill and am still jobless, there has been ample time to discover some of the nuances of self-recording.<br /><br />I decided to name the project "Ever Since Nebraska." It was the title of the first E.P. Nick and I recorded as Fireworks, a recording we used to maneuver into the bloated, prosaic world of Tucson music. Fueled by coffee and No Doz it was probably not as mindblowing as we imagined it to be, though a columnist at the Tucson Weekly did write a glowing review that we got a lot of mileage out of. I miss dearly the camaraderie of my former bandmates, and control freak though I may be, their creative input; I am not nearly as talented as any one of them.<br /><br />With that said, I decided to cover the titular track from Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" record. Keeping with the aesthetic of the original, I recorded it live and with plenty of reverb.<br />Here's the link: <a href="http://www.myspace.com/eversincenebraska">http://www.myspace.com/eversincenebraska</a><br /><br />Speaking of Springsteen covers, my friend Jack has his own version of "Atlantic City." He's an eminently talented guitarist but still new to the world of singing. His version is here:<br /><a href="http://www.ilike.com/artist/Jack+McKever/track/Atlantic+City">http://www.ilike.com/artist/Jack+McKever/track/Atlantic+City</a><br /><br />The picture is of me feeding a wild rez dog in Monument Valley, AZ. Not exactly Nebraska, but pastoral all the samePaul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-1058750733662613552009-09-20T18:15:00.000-07:002009-10-24T17:45:00.963-07:00<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">As they drove west into the sunset, the dusk seemed to linger on the horizon for much longer than it should.<span style=""> </span>All across Noah's line of sight a pale orange merged into yellow and then blue and then dark, but it seemed to take forever.<span style=""> He felt a</span> sort of cognitive dissonance because for a brief moment it was as if the sun was unsetting itself.<span style=""> He realized that the</span> dusk lingered, not of its own will, but because in a sense he was chasing it<span style="">.<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">He'd seen thousands of these Arizona sunsets but on this open stretch of Highway 191, on this Friday night, it caused him to speed up...65, 70, 80, 90 miles per hour until it seemed like he drew out the process an hour longer than it should have lasted. Gabby didn't comment on the speeding. In fact, she and Noah remained silent for most of the hour. And when the dark finally won out, about 30 miles outside Flagstaff, only then did they resume conversation.<br /></p> <!--EndFragment-->Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-85104845354977211172009-09-13T19:44:00.000-07:002009-09-13T20:35:36.190-07:00Indian KillerI just finished Sherman Alexie's <span style="font-style: italic;">Indian Killer</span> and am stunned by this lackluster effort. I've read two of his short story collections, <span style="font-style: italic;">Tonto and the Lone Ranger Fistfight in Heaven</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Ten Little Indians</span>, and found them both entertaining and innovative in construction. And so it pains me to write negative things about Alexie. He's an easy guy to root for and abundantly talented. But,<span style="font-style: italic;"> Indian Killer</span> finds Alexie mired in a permeating hatred that deprives his characters of depth and interest. The point of view oscillates amongst a vast cast of characters, providing snippets of insight into their lives without fully developing any one of them. The white characters are stereotypical to the point of caricature. They are buffoons, violent, stupid, wooden, set pieces in a war against five hundred years of oppression and violence. Certainly Alexie's poor development of white characters provides a greater commentary about the pitiable state of mainstream American culture in general, but in doing so he makes these characters uninteresting to the reader. If you have a novel full of Rush Limbaughs and racist rednecks or bleeding heart Indian wannabes, it might make for entertaining plot twists. It might provide a satisfying piece of genre fiction. It might even make one hell of a movie. But, it does not leave much room for the pleasurable textures of literary fiction. <br /><br /><br />The book at large is riddled with ultra convenient plot developments that come off as contrived, sloppy, and perhaps worst of all, just plain lazy. The dialogue is another lowlight. Many of the conversations sound awkward and sometimes unbelievable. For such a respected author, a torchbearer for the second wave of the Native American literature renaissance, the lack of effort evident in this novel is, at times, shocking. And speaking as a fan of Alexie's, I find myself disheartened and hurt.Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-80863707891939868832009-09-04T16:24:00.000-07:002009-09-04T16:25:21.769-07:00The Double Dream of SpringI gotta start by saying I miss you. And I love you. And sorry ‘bout last year. I thought it would be nice to give you back your knife as a present. You always did like the detailing on the pearl handle. I thought maybe you could use it wherever you are, but after I buried it things got tough. They only send your pension checks once a month, and they ain’t much. Momma can’t pay a thing with the money she’s got, and me and Lelen needed to eat. You should of heard Momma carrying on while we were in the pawn shop. <br /> She says, ‘Now, Gabby, how you gonna go and give a dead man a birthday present and then pawn it off. That just about makes you the biggest Indian giver in the world.’<br /> And boy was I embarrassed in front of the man at the pawn shop. And maybe she was right, but I bought formula and diapers and a quart of rum with the money I got from it, and you know, I don’t regret it cause I know you woulda been okay with it. And Momma was okay with it too once she got a couple snuffs of the booze in her.<br /> You’re probably looking down on me right now, and you see I got something here with me, so I’ll just go ahead and come out with it. I’ll never be able to replace that knife, but I got you another present, and I promise I ain’t gonna go and dig this one back up. Partly because it doesn’t have any re-sale value, but mostly cause I think you’ll like it more than that knife anyway. It’s a book of poems called the ‘Double Dream of Spring,’ and it’s by Ashbery. I know you always liked him, so before I leave here today, I’m gonna take a shovel and bury it real deep next you, so you don’t have far to reach for it.<br /> I bought it at that place in Flag we went to when you first moved out here. Momma and I took the bus over there a couple days ago, and boy, that store hasn’t changed a bit. I was poking around through the poetry section when this younger guy says from behind the counter, ‘Excuse me, m’am. Do you need any assistance?’ Just like that. In that snooty damn voice they always use when talking to us. And you know how those businessmen are anyways. It’s the same old story, they either act like we’re stealing or they try to rip us off, and this one was no different. He was eyeballing me and Momma and Lelen from the moment when we walked in. One hand on the phone to call the cops and one hand on the cash register. He was wearing this sweater vest and tight little plaid pants, and I swear, he was just about as obviously queer as you can get in this world. And so I says to him. ‘Yes, young man. I’m looking for a book a poetry by this guy, but I can’t remember his name. I’m hoping you can help me out.”<br /> He kind of relaxed and then says real condescendingly, “You’ll have to be more specific than that, m’am. We’ve got hundreds of books of poetry here.”<br /> And I start poring over the books pretending to try and remember Ashbery’s name. I say ‘well, it’s just on the tip of my tongue. It’s Ashley, or Adeli, or Audenberry…” And the clerk just keeps staring at me real annoyed like, and I go ‘Oh, hell I don’t know. He’s a big queer and he’s real into surrealism.” <br /> Boy, did that grab his attention fast. He darted over and says, “We don’t tolerate that kind of language in here.”<br /> I look at him all innocent and said, “Well, hell, I was just trying to be specific.”Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-48098095543088053492009-08-19T20:15:00.000-07:002009-09-04T16:28:20.376-07:00Hungry HeartNoah stood up from underneath the hood and reached for the can of Schlitz that was balanced on the front bumper of his 72 Ford. He wiped the sweat and grease from his brow with his left hand and then, with his right, he put the beer to his mouth and swallowed the contents in a single swig. He squinted down along the road to where its jagged ruts met up with Highway 160, and barely, just barely, he could see Gabby's figure striding towards.<br /><br />Even from a distance, he could tell who it was by the three legged dog loping along at a desperate pace to keep up with its owner. And as she came into clearer focus, Gabby's style was unmistakable: a creased brown leather jacket, black jeans, and black boots caked in dusty pink by the redness of the earth. She wore a pair of headphones held together by duct tape that clashed with the dark sheen of her ponytailed hair. Her army surplus bag hung over her right shoulder stretching down to where it met a large knife hanging from her belt. She looked ominous, if still familiar. A few years ago a friend managed to score a video tape player and a copy of "The Road Warrior" from the Mexican Hat pawn shop. Noah laughed. The resemblance to the Mel Gibson character was similar, except Gabby was real, and this wasn't the post-apocalyptic future; it was just Arizona.Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-57720335163849447772009-02-20T22:15:00.000-08:002009-02-21T09:45:18.240-08:00Breathe it Out (loosely)<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwO0fVzqmc5KuJtRUFleoTiPBbBdmVq5wcWl5xl1FLg8-iRRmOobuSmVMK5klUhV609HomR3eiOsREgjMbtFA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-14284360269682803232009-02-10T11:13:00.002-08:002009-02-10T11:14:48.247-08:00In-CountryGabby<br />I screamed out for you<br />Under<br />A blood burning moon<br />And all I<br />Could see was mortar rounds<br />Cutting<br />Into opulent stars<br />Exposed fat drooled out<br />From my mouth shaped wound<br />And flowed in the paddies already stained<br />In Quang Tri provincial, Indian Country rain<br />Mixture creating ambush manure<br />For a brown rice stronghold, Viet Cong owned home<br />Methodically the medic snaked to my side<br />Put his hand to my face, put an end to my voice<br />“Stop screaming, Chief. It’s just a fucking scratch.”<br /><br />But I was leaking electricity<br />through my ribcage. Field dressing swelling<br />like punji snake infection in a pond of spring<br />Engorged by the form of the melted plains<br />With a furious desire to deedee open holes<br />Gashed in the country by our C.O.’s<br />They hide what blooms abject and naked<br />Fingers in my wounds freshly awakened<br /><br /><br />Fluorescent lighting filtered through my<br />flaking eyelids<br />Hospital walls with<br />white painting flaking, exposing naked<br /> faces who told me<br />“Two weeks of lying<br />here in this bed.<br />5 all together will get you up<br />and back in to the field.”<br />Like Mangas on his last legs, boiled in fragments<br />My scalped crawled with distrust<br />Baptized by their rust<br /><br />And as the time of my first night<br />Drew out like a blade forever<br />Denton armless Texas Sam sat up next to me<br />in his bed<br />full of fermenting urine<br />The invalid prophetic, storyteller told me<br />“watch out for the cockroaches<br />They’ll crawl up<br />In your catheter if they think that you’re dead.” <br />I knew he was right<br />before I could see them<br /> cause the boy woke me up on that first night<br />screaming and thrashing<br />his stumps in the air<br />I shook him and pulled a bottle of jack from under my bed.<br />Put it to his face and he said,<br />“Thanks, chief. I ain’t big on Indians, but I got sense enough to thank a friend.”<br /><br /> “Charlie<br />Motherfucking<br />Viet-Cong<br />got me<br />with a<br />bouncing betty.<br />Now I’m a<br />Man sized baby."<br /><br /><br />The best thing about Sam<br />Was the way that he talked<br />Though he was just 19<br />still a boy<br />he could make me laugh so hard<br />I wanted to cry<br /><br />With his back to the sky in the enema room<br />Nurses reaching in him<br />he said, “just go in your bed<br />or they’ll dig in you too.”<br /><br />And one night on the ward<br />Color out my face<br />Melted into a haze<br />And everything felt just like<br />It was held together<br /><br />By waves and I felt<br />That I couldn’t see<br />Sam when he told me<br />Why he didn’t like Indians<br /><br />"Tina was about 12 when it happened to her<br />They plucked her out of our yard<br />Took her out on the road<br />And their truck blew a hose<br />And they junked both of them<br />Just like trash<br /><br /><br />But, I never saw her cry…<br /><br />In from the country out on the road<br />They raped my sister in a broken Ford<br />Mestizos dwelling on the drainage of time<br />Sucked back their oil from Tina’s hide<br />But my granddaddy took it like you would from a child<br />Who plays with fresh gold just to watch it shine<br />And though I never saw her cry<br />I could see the rawness between her thighs<br />Like the color of<br />the rust<br />on the truck<br />She slept in<br />Across the cracked<br />Vinyl seats<br />The stuffing her only source of heat or clothing<br />She spent the night naked cause two snakes were waiting<br />Out by the old well where she played on her swing set<br />That we tore down when she fell<br /><br /><br />And now her rust colored thighs<br />are imprinted on my eyes<br />Her rust colored thighs<br />They'll never leave my mind<br /><br />In this country or out in the country or Indian Country<br />it doesn't make a difference<br />Raped without repentance senseless<br />Fucking girls who can’t have kids yet<br />And If I had just two simple wishes<br />I would get my arms back with them<br />And strangle those motherfucking Injuns<br />Cause that’s just what they deservePaul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-49225954839963325742009-02-10T11:13:00.001-08:002009-02-10T11:13:08.811-08:00<a href="http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=28913300&albumID=1264416&imageID=52413897"><img src="http://hotlink.myspacecdn.com/images02/57/8041d94066044e8b819b53a638d98f57/m.jpg" alt="" /></a>Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-61310077000887156452008-12-05T09:42:00.001-08:002008-12-05T09:42:16.942-08:00In CountryGabby<br />I screamed out for you<br />Under<br />A blood burning moon<br />And all I<br />Could see was mortar rounds<br />Cutting<br />Into opulent stars<br />Exposed fat drooled out<br />From my mouth shaped wound<br />And flowed in the paddies all ready stained<br />In Quang Tri provincial, Indian Country rain<br />Mixture creating ambush manure<br />For a brown rice stronghold, Viet Cong owned home<br />Methodically the medic snaked to my side<br />Put his hand to my face, put an end to my voice<br />“Stop screaming, Chief. It’s just a fucking scratch.”<br /><br />But I was leaking electricity<br />through my ribcage. Field dressing swells<br />like punji snake infection in a pond of spring<br />Engorged by the form of the melted plains<br />With a furious desire to deedee open holes<br />Gashed in the country by our C.O.’s<br />They hide what blooms abject and naked<br />Their fingers in my flesh now awakenedPaul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-77521277598659010172008-11-27T18:34:00.001-08:002008-11-27T18:38:47.682-08:00Famous in the undergroundWe're back live. With special guests, explosions (figuratively, maybe), Akon, Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham of Fucked Up, and as always, the entire Chitwood family: Lelen, Gabriella, Tommy (in disembodied form), and Jimmy. Plus, Springsteen is stopping by for a warm up on his way to the Super Bowl.<br /><br />December 6th: the Living Room<br /><br />December 18: Dry RiverPaul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-82498814022091011352008-11-07T13:20:00.000-08:002008-11-07T13:23:21.914-08:00"Ever Since Nebraska" Lyrics4th of July<br /><br />Lelen's father disappeared<br />October 4 1968<br />This was a fact he knew very well<br />In the same way<br />He knew his height his age and his weight<br />And how many baby teeth were left in his face<br />Jimmy told the stories on the 4th of July<br />Weeks before harvest came<br />Over a quart of whiskey<br />And under a sheet of fireflies and thunder<br />Dreaming as the wheat reached towards the sky<br />in the Nebraskan dusk<br /><br />Out along the road in these dreams<br />They all took a long walk into the west<br />His uncle and father spoke of the east<br />Of the strangest harvest they had ever seen<br />Paddy dikes the moon half-obscured<br />They mortared the light, but instead hit the clouds<br />Baby spiders rained down like black embers<br />Like fireworks spiraling out of control<br /><br />My first born, my first born son<br />On that night we let you down<br />We shot full our own kind<br />Leaving the echoes far behind<br /><br />Dad I want you to know it's ok to let it go<br />I used to think I could make you<br />Appear as if you'd want me to<br />For a birthday I asked for a globe<br />Took a marker and drew a line<br />From one x to the next from the east back to the west<br />Saying poppa take this way home<br />I thought that you should know<br />Momma is dying slow<br />Smoking everything until you show<br />I can't hold on to her<br />Her wrinkles are rivers wide<br />So I run off to hide<br />Before the thrashers come in to sight<br /><br />Out along the road in the evening echoes<br />Stick to young feet like gravel<br />Out along the road in the evening<br />Echoes stick to wheelchairs<br />Lelen pushed his father's wheelchair<br />Into the bright horizon<br />Fireworks spiraling from the sky to the road<br />A make believe 4th of july<br />Was dancing right in front of their eyes<br />The echoes of the knots unraveled<br />Were his father's empty thighs<br /><br />Out along the road in the evening echoes<br />Stick to young feet like gravel<br />Out along the road in the evening<br />Echoes stick to young feet<br />And so they stopped and rested<br />Nearly every rise<br />Between hedges of corn<br />In the shade of the combine<br />And so some days he would pray<br />In nearly every way, in nearly every place<br />But this one<br /><br />Out along the road<br /><br />On the 4th of July<br />He just couldn’t find<br />On the 4th of July<br />His legs<br /><br />On the 4th of july the 4th of july<br />He still couldn’t find his father’s legs<br />On the 4th of july the 4th of july<br />Fireworks for echoes of lost time<br />On the 4th of july the 4th of july<br />The knots unravel a long goodbye<br /><br />This American harvest an idyll daydream<br />To Make a legless martyr run home to me<br />Does violence to the memory of the only dad I had<br />And now I hear the thrashers coming to put us all to bed<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Breathe It Out<br /><br />My mind must stay here<br />Leave with these ghosts<br />These prayers breathe out<br /><br />The double dream of spring awake<br />It’s stitched up soul, opened spoke<br /><br />Jimmy owned a farm on the prairie<br />Below Window Rock where the fields bloomed full<br />Jimmy owned a farm on the prairie<br />Below Window Rock where the fields<br /><br />Jimmy owned a farm on the prairie<br />Below Window Rock where the fields bloomed full<br />Of soot and rhodendrons<br />Explosions in the star dusted valley<br />Exposed his face just like a pallet<br />Painting portraits of naked ghosts<br />Dripping like raindrops off fenceposts<br />We ate the blossoms of the stars<br />And we beat the voice of his dusted drums<br />“Syncopates beat mosaics<br />the double dream of spring awaken<br />Narrating a breathing wound<br />His stitched up soul opened and spoke<br /><br />“And if I never get us home<br />this will be the end of the road<br />You road the railway here<br />But it doesn’t leave<br />It just snakes its way<br />Back to the mines<br />We’ve been buried under uranium<br />You’d drink as much as us<br />If you pissed toxic waste<br />I’ve lived my life like a drunk in shards<br />Like a man split open by his home<br />I watched my Dad become a drunk in shards<br />Like a man split open by his home.<br />I watched my Dad become a drunk in shards<br />Like a man split open by the road.”<br /><br />But in the end<br />We don’t die<br />Like our fathers<br />On a long walk<br /><br />(Breathe it out and they bloom removing doubt now)<br /><br />My mind must stay here<br />Live with these ghosts<br />These prayers breathe out<br /><br />(Breathe it out and they bloom removing doubt)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />KAYENTA<br /><br />Outside in the pouring rain Gabby’s son left today<br />Outside in the pouring rain the old Calypso walked without shame<br />Her boots caked in pink she chain smoked her Winstons<br />Following the highway back to the little gorge<br />The sandy paws of her three legged dog<br />Who carried a pouch with a knife and some rum<br />Till a highway patrolman pulled up alongside her<br />Looking for a taste of the salty sweat on her lips<br />She saw the look in his eyes<br />Said, “I’m not a donkey you can rent to ride<br />To the canyon floor, but my feet are sore, can you take me to my store?”<br />When they got to her shack he put his gun to her face<br />pulled off her shirt and tried to lap up her scent<br />His sweat yellowed her blouse with the musk of fate<br />He breathed in to her, as Kayenta rushed out<br />She looked to her dog, he came to her side and she reached in his pouch<br />To pull out a knife<br />She shook the man loose with the rage of a thrasher<br />And reached down between his quivering legs<br /><br />And she said…<br /><br />My name is Gabriella, and I’m from Kayenta<br />And it’s time the animal in me stood up.<br /><br />It’s been a long walk, a long, dream, a long harvest of memory,<br />A long life of carving these wooden figurines<br />Tommy left me back in 1968 with a pearl handled knife and a stomach full<br />Of himself his only wealth<br />He kissed my cheek and painted a sign reading “Dinosaur Tracks On Your Right.”<br />And if I cried it was cause I laughed so hard<br />Lelen was born three months later in a tent<br />My mother called it a home after my father left<br />And then one day it up and blew away some government came our way<br />And people would say, “Gabby went and got saved.”<br />But even with my dentures in Lelen never heard me when<br />I told him where his father went<br />And that ceremony’s not a sin<br />So when he walked to the bus today looking for gold<br />To buy back my home<br />I think he saw the road ahead of moving snakes and his father’s face<br />Reflected in their shedding skins<br />But, said “Momma stop worrying. I’m gonna climb a ladder from your attic door<br />out of this gorge.”<br /><br /><br />In to and out of me<br />You forced your way<br /><br />It’s not ok with me<br />To live when you want me to<br />To heal how you say I should<br />Out of my home<br /><br />I want you to know<br />What it felt like inside of my<br />As I gave birth for him<br />While you just gave away<br /><br />Dentures like a fucking<br />Because you shipped me home a box<br />Full of parts without a head<br />Pension for my voice<br /><br />His legs for conveniency<br />His arms to the V.C.<br />His neck for a lottery<br />Out of my home<br /><br />(Out of my home)<br /><br />Mr State Trooper<br />I could just who you were<br />Ever since Nebraska<br />You’ve been coming for me<br />But I have survived<br />On these nickels and dimes<br />Not asked for anything more<br />So get out of my home<br />Before I carve out your seed<br />Feed it back to my dog<br />Just like you’d do to me<br /><br />(Out of my home…)Paul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-65585889669252621462008-08-25T00:43:00.000-07:002008-08-25T00:48:58.484-07:00Kayenta (the animal in her)Outside in the pouring rain<br />the old calypso died of shame<br /><br />My names is gabriella and i'm from kayenta<br />and it's time the animal in me spoke up<br /><br />...and later<br /><br />it's been a long walk a long dream<br />a long harvest of memory<br />but when you left me baby<br />the dinosaur tracks were still fresh<br />as the ink on your sign, the arrow<br />pointing in my directionPaul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9182608191292029483.post-46842596514767109472008-08-25T00:27:00.000-07:002008-08-25T00:36:55.372-07:004th of july Draft(on the) 4th of July<br /><br />Lelen’s father lost both his legs<br />October 4 1968<br />This was a fact he knew very well<br />In the same way<br />He knew his height his age and his weight<br />And how many baby teeth were left in his face<br />Jimmy told the stories on the 4th of July<br />Weeks before harvest came<br />When the wheat touched the sky<br />Over a quart of whiskey<br />And under a sheet of fireflies<br />Dreaming in the Nebraskan dusk<br />Asleep before the dark<br /><br />Out along the road in these dreams<br />They all took a long walk into the west<br />Pastoral plentitude on a cambodian breeze<br />But jimmy stayed behind and let lelen lead<br /><br />Cresting the hill towards a bright horizon<br />Fireworks spiraling out of control<br />residue swirling left smoking<br />holes in their smiling faces<br /><br />Out along the road in the evening echoes<br />Stick to young feet like gravel<br />Out along the road in the evening<br />Echoes stick to wheelchairs<br /><br />Lelen pushed his father’s wheelchair<br />Into the bright horizon<br />Fireworks spiraling from the sky to the road<br />A make believe 4th of july<br />Was dancing right in front of their eyes<br />The echoes of the knots unraveled<br />Were his father’s empty shriveled thighs<br /><br />Out along the road in the evening echoes<br />Stick to young feet like gravel<br />Out along the road in the evening<br />Echoes halt wheelchairs<br />And so they stopped and rested<br />Nearly every rise<br />Between hedges of corn<br />In the shade of the combine<br />And so some days he would pray<br />In nearly every way, in nearly every place<br />But this one<br /><br />Because on this fourth of july<br />On this fourth of july<br />On this fourth of july<br /><br />He still couldn’t find his father’s legs<br /><br />On the 4th of july the 4th of july<br />Tommy chitwood drinks to the sky<br />On the 4th of july the 4th of july<br />He watches waking life memorialized<br />On the 4th of july the 4th of july<br />Son still drains the piss bag on father’s thighPaul Vegahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05859717479623232942noreply@blogger.com0